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The Dilemmas of 


Jesus 


/ By 
JAMES BLACK, D.D. 


Minister, St. George’s United Free 
Church, Edinburgh 


Author of “‘The Mystery of Preaching,” 
“The Pilgrim Ship,” etc. 


New York CHICAGO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


‘LoNDON AND EDINBURGH 





Copyright, 1925, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


To 
The Morning Congregation 
of 
St. George’s United Free Church, 
Edinburgh. 


Ui\y 
bAb 
i] 
iG} 


(: 


ee 





TO THE READER 


My only Foreword may be perfectly summed up 
in the great sentence and prayer, 
“ Sir, we would see Jesus.” 
JAMES BLACK. 
St. George’s United Free 
Church, Edinburgh 


i Nes 4 
i a 4 


¥) { 
6 
re. 
7s bry . 
Sie rai: 
Hires 





. Tur DILEMMA OF THE CROSS-ROADS 
. Tue DinEMMA OF AUTHORITY 

. THE DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 

. Tue DILEMMA OF SILENCE 

. THE DILEMMA WITH JuDAS . 


. THE Last DILEMMA. 


Contents 


. Toe DILEMMA AT JORDAN 


. Tun DmEMMA IN THE DEsSERT— 


(A) THE ANGUISH 


. THE DILEMMA IN THE DkESERT— 


(B) THE Vicrory . 


. Ture DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
. Tur DILEMMA OF PoLirics 


. Tur DILEMMA oF Nationa, LAw 


11 


fis 


45 
62 


78 
95 


“LEE 
ay, 
. 144 
. 161 
aye Wee, 
serene 


SS; 


i Att i eo 





I 


THE DILEMMA AT JORDAN 


5 time was now ripe. 

After the long years of quiet prepa- 

if ae ration,—a gracious boyhood and a 

PESEAY clean stretch of working manhood, 
with many long thoughts and wonderings that 
must remain a sealed book to us—the soul of the 
Redeemer was stirring in the life of the Man. The 
mysterious bidding of God was working in Jesus to | 
a clear issue and a great adventure. 

Personally, I rejoice that we know next to 
nothing of His early days. It would be no gain 
for me to have a string of precocious incidents 
and sayings such as fond parents store in their 
memory regarding the budding genius of their 
children. [I like that strong note of reticence, so 
unusual with us, where St. Luke remarks that 
His mother “ kept all these sayings in her heart.” 
Wise mother! 

All that need be said about the grotesque accounts 
of His boyhood given so lavishly in the uncanon- 
ical writings is that they are as foolish as they are 
spurious. They were written no doubt to honour 
Him, according to the ideas of the age, but some of 
our attempts to honour Jesus may only defame 


11 





12 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 


Him. They certainly defame Him when they are 
inventions. 

As things are—and I for one am grateful—our 
Lord steps clear on to the stage of His ministry, as 
if He had just come straight from the presence of 
God. It is a spiritual gain to us that He has no 
past. Let us leave these thirty years to Himself, 
for they belong only to Him and to God. It is 
enough for us to know that the period of His youth 
and manhood was a dawning shaping time of won- 
der and resolve. Surely the world has more than it 
can ever grasp or understand in the three rich years 
of His active ministry. In an ideal sense, it is not 

“Jesus the Boy, or Jesus the Workman, but Jesus 
the Christ with whom we are concerned. We know 
all that we need know. 

The time was now ripe. 

The long slow processes had at last fully gath- 
ered to a head, and Jesus felt definitely the urge of 
God. Unlike other gifted men, conscious of big 
possibilities within them, He had not been impatient 
at the prolonged delay, nor had He betrayed petu- 
lance regarding God’s postponements. ‘Though the 
Winter may have seemed unduly long, He had 
quietly stayed the coming of the Spring-time. Now 
that it had come, stretching Himself as a rested 
man awaking from sleep, He walked slowly out 
from the home and the carpenter’s bench to the 

» new adventure. 
Perhaps that waiting was God’s final test. 


THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN We, 


At this moment, He feels the thrill of His new- 
found gifts. God’s whisper, so long deferred, has 
roused Him to a knowledge of two things—His 
work and Himself. Of the two it may well be that 
the discovery of Himself is the greater, for by it 
the other was conditioned. 

We cannot know how or when it came, though 
we may well hazard the suggestion that John’s clear 
message of the Kingdom served as one of the 
prongs of awakening. But we do know that the 
call has come,—at last. A sense of His own great- 
ness stirs in Him,—a unique conception of His 
mission based on a unique conception of Himself. 

Why need we wonder at this, even on a human 
level? I have met young men, poor triflers com- 
pared with Jesus, who with some little hot splutter- 
ing message in their heart, have felt themselves 
strangely aloof from the world. If we do not 
think it remarkable to see some young reformer 
thus exalted, why need we doubt that Jesus, with 
the full burden of God in His heart, should feel 
Himself at this moment strangely unique and 
supreme? 

I emphasise this, and dwell on it, because of what 
follows. For it is Christ’s uniqueness, majestically 
felt in His own heart, which creates this dilemma 
at Jordan. 


I 
For out there at the river, clothed like a hermit 


14 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 


and with the gaunt face of an ascetic, there was a 
young prophet, John the Baptist, working wonders, 
a man with a flaming message who feared no one 
but God. 

The fierce preaching of this man had been por- 
tentous. He had stirred the Israel of his day, as 
few at any time had ever done. Men of all orders 
and ranks,—Pharisees and soldiers, taxgatherers 
and priests,—had flocked to him in fascinated won- 
der. He was a magnificent survival, a prophet 
after the days of the prophets, but with more than 
a prophet’s motley crowd. 

This diversity of his appeal is one of the proofs 
of his greatness. A stronger proof lies in the fact 
that he compelled his audience to come to him in 
the desert instead of his seeking them in the cities. 
But the clearest proof of all lies in this,—that 
though he was as elemental and characteristic as 
any man who ever preached, yet his personality was 
drowned in his message. St. Mark calls him “ the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness.” That is the 
finest tribute to a preacher ever recorded. 

He was a great “ voice” calling the world from 
its sin, and preaching the vehemence of God. The 
one note of his doctrine was sin—sin national and 
private, sin that cried to Heaven. The one demand 
of his preaching was repentance. “Ye are all a 
generation of vipers.” This is the roll of muffled 
thunder. “ Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” 

At this moment, he was at the height and crest 


THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN i 


of his mission of cleansing. Though the mighty 
and the great came to his feet, he truckled to no 
man; but from them all, priest and publican alike, 
he demanded this one thing, repentance. They were 
all of them God’s apostate people: and before he 
would baptise even the best of them, they must first 
baptise themselves in their own purifying tears. 

“ Repent!” “ Repent!” 

It was a Baptism of Repentance,—that only. 


II 


How would Jesus, unique in His own soul and 
conscious of no need such as John exacted, relate 
Himself to a message like this? 

It is easy to understand the difficulty as it touched 
our Lord. 

If this crusade of John was purely a Baptism of 
Repentance, Jesus, whom no person could convict, 
could not accept. He acknowledged sin to no man. 
Whether we admit this or not, it is at least a clear 
note of His own consciousness. He is the only man 
in history who never acknowledged sin without be- 
ing called a hypocrite or a self-deceiver. “ Which 
of you convicteth me of sin?” 

How then would a pure soul like Jesus treat the 
Baptism of John? 

Even although God was evidently working His 
own wonders through this man in His own way, 
yet the gate through which the prophet called the 
nation to God was the narrow gate of repentance. 


16 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 


With no consciousness of need in His own heart, 
could Jesus stoop to enter in? 


There were one or two courses open to Him 
which might have agreed with His uniqueness, 
and in human eyes might even have seemed to - 
enhance it. 

(a) So far as He Himself was concerned, He 
might have said, “ This ministry of repentance is 
salvation for these needy people, but of course, it 
cannot in any way apply to me. By God’s love, I 
come to my great work with a stainless heart. 
Having nothing to confess, I need no cleansing 
tears.” 

Thus, in His own feeling of purity, He might 
easily have neglected this ministry of John. In no 
sense had it any concern with Him or any bearing 
on His own fortunes. We can easily picture Him 
standing aloof, no doubt with a sincere benediction, 
but yet regarding it as something that had no imag- 
inable relation to Him. In every good sense, He 
might have felt Himself “ above’’ it. 

In one view—a good view—that course of con- 
duct might have established and indeed enhanced 
His uniqueness in our eyes. Some of us might 
have praised God that Jesus felt Himself divinely 
superior to such a message as this Baptism. 


(6) Again, He might have advanced further and 
argued, on the positive side, that though John’s 


THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN Py 


ministry had served its own day superbly, yet since 
He Himself had now appeared, its day was done. 

John’s preaching was a beautiful relic of the 
past,—the past that was now swallowed up for 
ever in the glorious present. The Baptist had 
only foretold that the Kingdom was coming: 
Jesus announced that at last the Kingdom had 
come. Thus in a quiet but assured way, He might 
have brushed John’s baptism aside, as an obsolete 
thing, good in itself, no doubt, but now finally 
superseded. The Prince’s herald retires when the 
Prince appears. 

To some minds also, such an attitude might have 
been fully consistent with His uniqueness and 
might even have seemed to enhance it. 


(c) Yet again, with His own soul hot with God’s 
full vision, He might not only have slurred and 
neglected John’s Baptism, but might easily have 
opposed and decried it. 

In His eyes, admittedly, that ministry of John 
was an imperfect thing. It was a great half-truth. 
It proclaimed only aspects of God and aspects of 
sin. Is it not our duty to smash imperfect things, 
lest they lure simple souls from the biggest and 
the best? 

Moreover, for some time to come, John was cer- 
tain to be a faint rival of Jesus, and might draw 
some seeking souls from His sway. For the sake 
of His own unique work, it might be better there- 


18 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 


fore to trample John’s ministry in the dust and 
break his influence. This is a common way with 
the big men of history: they prove their own power 
by breaking their rivals. 

Some of us might well think that this was the 
perfect way for Christ to prove His uniqueness. 


iil 


That was what He might have done, as we see it 
in our pitiful worldly wisdom. 

What did He do? 

Bidding His mother and brethren farewell, He 
walked out of Nazareth one summer morning along 
the dusty ways and through the scrubby hills, 
making for the pools of Jordan. He joined the 
throng of troubled seekers whose anxious feet had 
beaten paths like sheep-tracks through the rough 
country. He mingled humbly with this pilgrim 
mob until they brought Him to the motley con- 
course at the river. There He stayed all day, 
watching with His loving eyes this great sacrament 
of a people’s awakening and cleansing. Then, as 
twilight gathered and the weary people trudged 
homewards,—some, praise God, with lighter hearts, 
—Jesus, “ when all the people were baptised,”’ went 
up to John. 

Quietly and yet with a note of authority He 
asked to be baptised.. There, alone with the silent 
stars, He faced the weary preacher. 

Sir, | would be baptised of thee. 








THE DILEMMA AT F¥ORDAN 19 


What took place thereafter was a subtle tribute 
to Jesus and John. 

It was a tribute to Jesus in that it shows how, 
then and always, men came under the magic sway 
of His personality. They might hate Him: they 
might love Him. They might fear Him: they 
might trust Him. But one and all, then as now, 
were forced to admit the majesty and compulsion 
of His character. Whatever John may have known 
about Him, he felt this constraining power. 

It was a tribute to John also in that he, an 
approved man on the crest of the wave, recog- 
nised in this humble: relative of his the final 
messenger of God. I think this is John’s biggest 
moment. ‘There are no blinkers for the eyes so 
deadly as a near kinship! We are so ready to 
acknowledge great qualities in some stranger, while 
we only smile indulgently at our own brother! 
One may be too near to things to see them in their 
true focus. 


IV 


To John’s shamed protest that he should presume 
to baptise Jesus, our Lord made a reply that is now 
one of the great sentences of literature. “Jt be- 
cometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” 

In undergoing this Baptism of John, needless to 
say, Jesus did not confess sin. It was not with 
tears but a solemn and assured joy that He went 
through the service, But in that great sentence of 


20 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 


explanation He gave us the compelling reason that 
led Him to take this step—how He, though con- 
scious of no need, should undergo a Baptism of 
Repentance. 

By the message of this sentence He gloriously 
solved His own dilemma. ‘“ What relation shall I 
have to John? What attitude shall I take to his 
crusade of repentance?” With this sentence on 
His lips, “it becometh us to fulfil all righteous- 
ness, He stepped into the low water of the pool. 

sir, [ would be baptised of thee. 


V 

Why did He do it? 

Even if our words be but broken guesses at 
truth, it may help us if we express them. We need 
not profess to understand the motives that moved » 
a pure soul like Jesus, but in that sentence of His 
He left the door of His heart a little ajar. 

Did He hope perhaps that some of us might 
peep within? 

1. At the outset, with serious purpose, He 
thereby aligned Himself with everything He knew 
‘ to be good. He greeted God whenever He saw His 
shadow. 

For Him, without doubt, this Baptism of John 
had serious faults: it was far from perfect. But, 
on the other hand, it was the one thing in that age 
that stood out unmistakably for God and good. So 
He quietly overlooked the defects in it that were 


THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 21 


personal to Him, and publicly identified Himself 
with this crusade for righteousness. He seemed to 
reason that even if He did not need this baptism of 
repentance, there were millions who did! 

I find in this a gracious guidance for myself in 
countless things. 

I look, for instance, at the modern Church. As 
I examine this institution, I become pitifully aware 
of its faults. It is a broken thing, so broken that 
many a passer-by reviles it openly. It may have 
gold in it—no doubt it has—but sometimes I see 
only a mighty mass of dross. I question if any one 
can criticise the faults of the Church, as a serious- 
minded minister can. The shortcomings, the fail- 
ures, the open contradictions, the meagreness of our 
love and life, the wretched contrast between pro- 
fession and practice,—sometimes, as I look at the 
Church, I see only its ghastly shortcomings. 

What shail I do with it then? 

Stand outside and shake its dust from my feet? 
Neglect it because I do not need it? Denounce it 
because it is so imperfect? Judge it not by its 
attainments but by its failures? 

Or shall I steal up like Jesus, and line up like 
Jesus, knowing all its imperfections but knowing 
also that it is the one clear thing in this bleak world 
of ours that stands for God and goodness? Like 
Him, shall I take my part in it even though I could 
criticise it? Yes, I could criticise it, none better! 
But may it not be the big thing, and the Christian 


22 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 


thing, simply to enter in and take my saving share 
in its work? 

I feel the same with every scheme of reform that 
is pressed on my notice. How inadequate they all 
are! Any child can see their faults and blemishes. 

Here, for instance, is some temperance reform. 
But ah! have you noticed how inadequate it is, and 
how open it is to criticism? If I set my mind to it, 
I could tear a thousand gaping holes in its side. 

Here again is some social reform. But the in- 
justices that are wrapped up with it! The inade- 
quacies of its provisions! The loopholes through 
which a hundred scoundrels may work their evil 
will! How can a man, with any self-respect, take 
part in these schemes that are so full of patent 
shortcomings ? 

In all these things, I love the way my Mas- 
ter did. 

No one could have criticised this inadequate Bap- 
tism of John more than He. No one indeed had 
less need of it than He. But He stepped into the 
water of Jordan, and said, “ Sir, I would be bap- 
tised of thee.” For He saw a little bit of God in 
~ this crusade of the preacher, and taking His lance 
in His hand, He marched with the crusaders. 


2. I said that He aligned Himself with every- 
thing that was good and worthy. In as serious a 
sense, He now aligned Himself with everything 
that was evil and worthless. 








TEH DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 23 


The evil of the world—especially in that thing 
we call sinm—is gathered up in us. When Jesus 
stepped into Jordan, He ranged Himself by our 
side: for He joined Himself to the great company 
of the afflicted people of His day. He entered into 
a glorious community, a solidarity, with such 
broken and defeated souls as we are. 

This is one aspect of the baptism which no wise 
man will dare forget. It shows us in a wonderful 
symbolism the quality of the Lord we serve. He 
did not need this Baptism. But I do! And He is 
standing now where I stood. 

What shall I call this gracious act? 

I dare not call it “condescension.” That sug- 
gests a picture of some superior person conscious 
of the praiseworthiness of his act. I call it rather 
the identity of sympathy. The genius of true sym- 
pathy is that it stands, humbly and fully, where its 
object stands. 

Our Lord did this. Do we? 

With us, a sense of uniqueness always separates. 
We stand apart in our lordly greatness. But 
Christ’s greatness only led Him to identify Himself 
with us. It is true that He entered into our experi- 
ences in all ways: but this deed at the river is His 
greatest act of identity. 

See Him now, standing in the low water, just 
where all the needy folk had confessed their sins. 

Our Lord did this. Do we? 

I observe that as soon as any one of us feels a 


24 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 


note of distinctness we stand off in mental isolation. 
Superiority with us means aloofness. A little 
learning—and we feel strangers with the ignorant! 
A touch of birth—and one would think we were of 
another order of clay! Some wealth—and we feel 
as if we could buy souls like bricks! Human great- 
ness is human pride. 

There He is standing in the water of Jordan. 

An hour before, I saw a crowd of needy souls 
standing in the same place. 

One with God. One with us. 


3. Again, in this act, I consider that Jesus linked 
Himself definitely with all the honourable past. 

John was the last of the prophets, a pathetic sur- 
vival of great days. He was of the order of Elijah 
and Amos, and in message and methods alike, he 
was of their breed. 

With new light in our hearts, it is so easy, so 
tempting, sometimes so cheap, to condemn the past. 
In our modern literature, every young, callow 
Georgian discourses with a sneer of the age of 
Queen Victoria. In fact, we all speak patronisingly 
of the past,—until it is sufficiently past! Then 
when it becomes decrepitly ancient, we fall on our 
knees and worship it. 

Jesus had a better right than any to say, “ ‘The 
best things in the past are now swept out. I begin a 
new era. Men formerly groped blindly for God: 
I bring them God Himself. Every truth in the past 


ee 


THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 25 


is now grandly superseded. Perhaps, in order to 
show how new and searching my message is, I 
should treat John as if he were an anachronism.” 

He might have said that. 

Instead, He definitely linked Himself, publicly, 
with this last of the prophets. In asking for the 
benediction of John’s Baptism, He linked Himself 
with every good thing that men had struggled for 
through days of sorrow and blunder. 

I would learn irom my Master this beautiful 
secret. 

Our age, except in certain churchy circles which 
live in undiluted medievalism, is in grave danger of 
despising the past and trying to cut itself adrift 
from its influence. I do not know much of 
Bolshevism. Who does? ‘The fault is not ours, 
for the Bolshevists have left us to judge their creed 
by their actions: and these, I fear, are not savoury. 
But so far as I understand it, I have one quarrel 
with this creed. It believes that it can only remedy 
the present and save the future by cutting itself 
wholly adrift from the past. It seems to believe 
that everything in the past has been worthless and 
rotten. Therefore let the past go; for it has no 
experience or lesson that can help a modern man! 
The one way to build a new society is to raze 
everything to the ground and start afresh. 

I believe in progress. In spite of all the muddle 
of life, I believe in progress. But I do not believe 
in disconnected progress. I believe in new things. 


26 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 


But I do not know of any new thing that has not 
sprung from older things, as a flower evolves from 
seed. If the creed of the Bolshevist advocate repre- 
sents a universal smash of everything, social or 
religious, that has its roots in the past, his ideal 
action is to put a revolver to his own head. For the 
Bolshevist, like every one of us, is the greatest em- 
bodiment of the accumulated heredities of ageless 
strivings. 

The only future worth having is a future that 
honours the past, and indeed grows out of it. I like 
my Master’s way in this. -He set out, more than 
any one ever did, to revolutionise life and religion. 
But I praise God that His first great act was to step 
into Jordan and link Himself with John, the last 
of the prophets. In acknowledging the Baptist, He 
acknowledged the long processes of which he was 
the crown. 


4, Still further, our Lord’s act is a gracious 
benediction on every good convention, and a 
recognition of all customs or rites that exhibit a 
bit of God. 

We think that the more original a man is, the 
more should he be expected to despise ordinary 
ways and strike out on lines of his own. Indeed 
we regard it as a mark of “bigness” that a man 
should be unconventional. I admit that the fresh 
eye of genius often sees how hollow and empty 
conventional ways may be. We become so used to 





QGCGCrerreY——————————————————— 


THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 27 


our fashions of life that we do not notice how hoi- 
low they ring. 

It may be equal to a revelation, sometimes, to 
shake ourselves out of ancient and accepted modes. 
Otherwise, life would be dominated, and cursed, by 
convention. 

Yet I cannot but think that every good man 
should seriously consider his relation to all estab- 
lished practices and canons of conduct. It is so 
easy, and so foolish, to despise them. But it may 
be a bigger and finer thing to honour good ob- 
servances than to imagine ourselves beyond them. 
It was a mark of greatness even for such an origi- 
nal soul as Jesus to say “ It becometh us to fulfil all 
righteousness.” 

We soon learn that life runs, and must run, in 
conventions: and if a convention lives at all, it is 
because it has some real contribution of goodness 
hidden in its heart. In mock superiority, shall we 
kick these things aside? We do not need them, 
| perhaps,—but do others? All strong men show the 
quality of their strength by remembering those who 
are lame. 
| I may say, for instance, that the formal and con- 
- ventional methods of Sabbath observance need not 
apply to me, for I try to observe the day of God in 
spirit. Why should I be bound by this hoary 
convention ? 

I may do one of two things—go my own way, 
as Jesus might have done, had He cared; or go the 








28 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 


way that helps others, and so fulfil all righteousness. 
I cannot help comparing the petty little ways of 
some human soul in revolt with the way of my 
Lord. Though He was as original as the very 
breath of God, He said so simply, “Jt becometh us 
to fulfil all righteousness.” 


Thus He settled His dilemma at Jordan. 

He considered that the least in the Kingdom of 
God was greater than John. But He ranged Him- 
self by the side of the prophet. 

Sir, I would be baptised of thee. 

Such a Lord! 














Ii 
THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT— 
(A) THE ANGUISH 


iN that notable decision at Jordan, 
Jesus had both humbled and conse- 
crated Himself,—perhaps the one a 
means and condition of the other. 

Thereafter, as an electric current may thrill silent 
machinery into throbbing motion, He became con- 
scious of the invasion of God’s power in new ways 
and new measures. The great engine of His soul 
began to move! 

That power flooded Him like the opening of a 
sluice-gate, as soon as He answered God’s call fully 
and unreservedly. Indeed it seems to us as if the 
experience of the Baptism awoke Him to new 
issues almost as one is roused from sleep. So 
large a part does the consecration of this service 
play in His life, that it is not too much to say 
that He entered the water of Jordan as Jesus the 
carpenter, and left it as Jesus the Christ. In His 
own heart, if we may judge from what followed 
so startlingly, the one thing of which He was 
supremely conscious as the outcome of this ex- 
perience was power. 





29 


30 | THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


This fact brought Him face to face with His 
second dilemma. 

For in its very nature, this strange power which 
now invaded His soul was like a two-edged sword. 
It gave Him at once a sense of quiet assurance and 
a suggestion of danger,—peace and questioning. — 
All true revelation acts like this. On the one hand, — 
it thrills us and brings its own drive and passion- _ 
ate energy. But with the elation, a wise man is 
equally conscious of danger, the danger of excess 
and misuse. . . . In regard to Christ’s special 
danger, I question if any single thing in human life 
has been so frequently and ruinously misapplied as 
power. 


Having this gift of power, as yet untried and un- 
mastered, He has now to face the question how He 
will use it for His high purpose. For instance, 
could the end justify the means, any means, so long 
as the end itself was secured? Could He establish 
His Kingdom by any expression of this power 
other than the highest? 

This strong confidence within him came immedi- 
ately from God: that was undoubted. But a God- 
like gift may be misused and perverted, even when 
it is apparently used for God’s ends. Indeed, it is 
this “perversion of the best” that is always the 
worst. Consider, for instance, what it is that re- 
volts us in all religious persecution. I think our 
disgust lies here,—that this persecuting zeal is a 














THE ANGUISH 31 


sincere passion for God and God’s truth, ruinously 
misused! It represents power and passion com- 
pletely perverted. 


Thus our Lord has now to settle how He will 
apply this divine power, that has come to Him like 
a sudden dawn. 

We read that the agony and conflict of this 
question drove Him distracted into the desert. He 
felt that He must be with Himself and God to 
think it all out. This flight to the wilderness is one 
of the most natural touches of our Lord’s human- 
ity. Every great soul, before or since, has fled 
there. Perhaps, every great soul has found itself 
there. 

He would not be bone of our bone in any true 
sense did He not take with Him into that desert 
a tortured soul. Possibilities, both of plan and 
method, had risen before His mind like beckoning 
ghosts. The clash and appeal of warring ideals 
were a real agony in His soul. The scene itself is 
a proof of this. 

He had so many things to settle——His own self- 
.discipline, His inward loyalties, and a line of direc- 
tion for His work. For these powers within Him 
carried their own danger. He might use them 
selfishly, thoughtlessly, arrogantly, or mischiey- 
ously. Or He might use them for the pure glory 
of God and the need of man, even though He Him- 
self might suffer in doing so. Power to light or 


ip THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


scorch: power to curse or bless! . . . It is the 
eternal dilemma of all power. 


It was a lonely struggle. To Him, as to us, 
temptation is an experience of desperate loneliness. 
Even when it is fought out amid thronging crowds, 
it creates its own desert. 


“The mind és its own place: and in itself 
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” 


Before we watch Him in this lonely experience, 
I should like to make some comments on the gen- 
eral situation. I make them for two reasons,—to 
clear away some defaming misconceptions of this 
scene, and especially, to show how real this experi- 
ence was in His own soul. 


I 


It was real. Otherwise it has no business in this 
record. 

The temptation-setting may suggest at first a 
scene from a staged drama. It may even appear 
artificial with its questioning Satan. But it is none 
the less the drama of a soul and the picture of an 
agony. We need not imagine anything either seen 
or heard, but something felt: for it was not an out- 
ward demonstration but an inward anguish. 

However formal or fanciful the details of the 
scene may appear, it was of pure necessity an in- 
ward experience: for temptation must actually 





THE ANGUISH 33 


insert itself as an attractive thing into the tempted 
mind, before it can be real in any sense. He Him- 
self thought it so real, and remembered it after- 
wards with so much poignancy, that He told it in 
later days in this flashing way to His disciples. For 
Him it was an unforgettable memory! 

I shall speak of this more fittingly in the fol- 
lowing chapter. Meanwhile our duty is to observe 
that He was genuinely tempted, torn as with devils, 
as any one of us may be. Whatever it does, this 
dramatic scene reveals the man Jesus battling for 
His own soul, and battling as we do. Indeed, the 
whole motif of the scene is to show that it was a 
battle. 


I cannot help thinking that any theory of this 
struggle that makes Him more than a man in the 
powers He employed, makes Him less than a man. 
For such a view awards Him the victory through 
unnatural means, supernatural devices of which 
you and I in our conflicts can never make use. 
Moreover, if He needed these unnatural means to 
aid Him in His resistance, His victory was not 
His own, and in its moral value was really less 
than the victory of any boy who in his own 
and God’s strength resists a theft and stands for 
honour. 

Either Jesus fought His own devil here as I do 
mine—in His own strength and by communion with 
God—or He is no saviour for me. His victory, if 


E an 


34 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT *” 


secured by means beyond my power and resources, é 
would not help me, but would bea tragic mockery ~ 


of my passion. The man who would help me by 
his example must stand wholly where I stand and 
fight as I fight. 

That Christ did so is beyond all question. 

I like these words in the record where it says that 
after His victory the angels ministered unto Him. 
After His victory, thank God! There is nothing 
magical in that, for I find that these gracious angels 
do the same for me,—after my victory! Also, 
thank God! | 


Could Jesus fall? 

Why not? 

Unless this temptation is a mere phantom of what 
temptation may be, unless Christ’s contest is only a 
make-belief and not a staggering reality, unless this 
is a staged scene and so ultimately a farce, there is 
no other conclusion. Any idea of His sinlessness 
that excludes the possibility of His sin or the choos- 
ing of alternatives, makes it an achievement of no 
moral worth. If I am good simply because I can- 
not be anything else, of what moral value is my 
goodness? We dishonour Jesus and His victory by 
some of our hesitant theories. He might have 
denied God—but He didn’t. He might have denied 
Himself—but He didn’t. 

This is the majesty of His Sonship. 

This is the ground of His Saviourhood. 


eee 





THE ANGUISH — 35 


IT 

Not only was Jesus genuinely tempted, but He 
was always tempted. 

I protest against the constant use of the definite 
article in describing this scene,—The Temptation— 
as if this were the only one Christ ever endured, or 
as if He dealt here so sweepingly with the issues of 
His life and ministry, finally and for good, that He 
was never tempted again. Were that the case, He 
would, once more, be utterly different from us: 
and being different, He would be no Saviour for 
us. In our life, when we are tempted, we may with 
agony settle some matter as He did, with signal 
victory. But the victory is never complete or final, 
for we are tempted again in the same point tomor- 
row. Our decision is a series of decisions. 

No doubt there is a forgotten but gracious truth 
in the fact that one clear ringing answer makes the 
next answer easier. There is such a thing as the 
guarding peace of a strong decision. Without any 
question, Christ’s unqualified answer settled His 
temptation with the blow of a firm refusal. 

But a stricken enemy rises again. That Jesus 
won here does not alter the fact that He, like us, 
was tempted again, and always tempted. Why! 
almost at the end, in that grim scene of Geth- 
semane, He faced one of these precise temptations 
again,—if, by any chance, the cup might pass from 
Him, and He might use His power to save Himself 
from the shame of the cross. 


36 LAE SDILE MMA TNT PESOS tke 


He was tempted till the day He died—tempted, 
perhaps, most in dying: and like us, He had to 
watch His own soul with unwinking vigilance and 
ceaseless prayer. 

Fe was in all points tempted like as we are. 


Iil 


It is of great spiritual profit to notice when Christ 
was tempted. 

Is it an accident that this scene is placed at this 
precise point in the narrative? Might it equally, 
for our profit, be placed anywhere else? I be- 
lieve that it stands here in its true psychological 
sequence. 

Some people assert that the Temptation scene 
represents later experience on the part of Jesus. Is 
it likely that in the radiant opening of His ministry 
He would be tempted in these gross ways? ‘This 
surely is later experience, representing subsequent 
temptation, but gathered here in this convenient and 
telling fashion. 

There are two fatal errors in this. One is an 
error of interpretation. ‘The temptations in the 
wilderness are not gross, but only spiritual. The 
second is an error of judgment and insight. I be- 
lieve that the Temptation stands here in its true 
place, chronologically and psychologically. This is 
the time when it happened, because this is the time 
when it must have happened! 

Recall what had taken place. 





- THE. ANGUISH oes 


He had felt the call and stir of God to enter on 
His ministry. He had settled His first dilemma by 
humbly undergoing the Baptism of John. With a 
great and wonderful exaltation of soul, He had 
realised that the long-awaited hour had come. It is 
then, just then, after the uplift of His call and the 
consecration of His Baptism, that Jesus is su- 
premely tempted. This is true to the experience of 
our life, and it links Him with all human nature. 

What may that fact imply? 

It means surely that He is tempted on two as- 
pects of one great experience,—on the one hand, its 
great exaltation, when He is lifted up on wings; or 
on the other hand, in its reaction, when the soul 
descends again and walks the dusty ways of the 
world. 

Surely we can understand this, and even link 
ourselves with Him in.this experience. Personally, 
I do not know any more dangerous moments for us 
than these,—the moment of conscious thrill and 
power, and the moment of natural rebound and 
reaction. 

Let us consider the first of the two. 

I have heard people suggest that the hour of a 
man’s greatest temptation is when he is “ down and 
out,’ when he is broken on the wheel, when things 
are against him, when he is fighting desperately 
just to hold his own, fighting, it may be, even for 
the food he needs. I do not minimise that danger. 
Anyone who has been “ down ” like that knows that 


38 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


there are queer insinuating temptations that rap 
imperiously at the gate of the soul. 

But I hold—I think I am right—that there is 
something in the average man that keeps him strong 
in such a situationn—an element of tenacity, even 
mere pugnacity, that makes him shut his teeth and 
hold on. Like Job in his similar distress, he be- 
lieves that the scheme of things is gravely wrong, 
and he desires passionately to justify himself. His 
very anger may be a moral protection. 

But a man is more off his guard in his elation 
than in his despair. In his despair, he constantly 
thinks of himself, sometimes nothing but himself. 
That is his safety. But in his elation, he forgets 
himself. That is his danger. 

If you ask any young man about this, he will put 
you right. Or if you can, probe your half-forgotten 
memories, and they will tell you. When is a young 
man’s danger? Is it not when he is at the top of 
his bent, when his blood runs hot and red, when he 
stretches his body in the glorious excess of con- 
scious strength, when he feels, as Christ felt, the 
sheer mastery and mystery of power. It is then 
that most of us play the fool. If I may say it 
reverently, that is when Christ was tempted,—when 
He, too, stretched His arms in new and awful 
strength! 

His moment of danger is ours. 


Or it may be the other side of this experience,— 


THE ANGUISH ao 


when the elation has passed, as all emotions must, 
and one is in the natural reaction of the strain. 

By this time, Christ’s early wonder and con- 
sciousness of dawning power had passed. He had 
undergone that emotional struggle regarding John’s 
Baptism and the consecration of the service itself. 
He had settled His dilemma, and had given Him- 
self fully to God in the deep experience of the Bap- 
tism. He had heard God whisper to His soul, and 
in vision had seen the Heavens opened, and had 
gazed into the eyes of His Father. 

The experience was now over. 

Like us, He had to drop back to the level of 
His daily life and ministry. I said the “level,” 
—but does anyone ever drop back immediately 
to the level? Do we not rather sink a little below 
it, like the swing of a pendulum before it comes 
to rest? 

All experience warns us of that moment of tired 
reaction. There are few things just so exhausting 
as emotional exaltation, and consequently, few 
things so dangerous. After the excitement has 
waned, we pay the penalty for any true emotional 
output. We become the slaves of our own depres- 
sion, with its reproachful fears and defaming 
temptations. Evil so often catches us on the 
rebound. 

I am glad to think that this was as true of Jesus 
as of me. I believe that the experience of the Bap- 
tism carried with it a moment like this. Jesus is 


40 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


linked with us in the very naturalness of such an 
event. His moment of danger is ours. 

If we watch that moment as He did, and commit 
it to God as He did, we may also find a way of 
victory like Him. 


IV 


There is gain also in considering the manner and 
fashion in which our Lord was tempted. 

His contest came to Him quite definitely and 
clearly along the individual line of His own peculiar 
powers. It is a commonplace, but none the less 
far-reaching, to say that His type of temptation 
could never be ours, just as ours could never be His. 
We are each tempted along the peculiar line of our 
own vocation, our own gifts, and our own tempera- 
ment. Christ’s temptation, for instance, was purely 
concerned with His own work. Perhaps that is 
one reason why we shall never understand its es- 
pecial poignancy to Him, as in a lesser degree we 
never understand the plea and appeal of our broth- 
er’s temptation. I find that I can always overcome 
another man’s difficulties, as he might smile at 
mine. It is my own that seem hardest, because, as 
with Jesus, they are special to me. 

It is foolish to think, therefore, that because these 
temptations of Jesus seem easy to us, they were 
easy to Him. Any one of us might smile at the 
suggestion to cast ourselves down from a pinnacle 
of the Temple to dazzle a multitude. But Jesus 


‘ 


i —" 


THE ANGUISH 41 


could well smile at our temptation to cheat or tell 
a lie! He was tempted along His own special 
line: and we are tempted along ours. Let this 
‘remembrance only make us the more reverent 
and gentle with some other man’s debate, at 
which we might feel inclined to sniff with con- 
tempt. No doubt he might return the contempt if 
only he knew the thoughts and dreams that haunt 
our minds, ; 


V 

As I see Jesus in the toils, I think it is worth 
saying, for the comfort of many, that Temptation 
in itself is no sin. 

I have found that this matter of Temptation per- 
plexes many good people, and especially perplexes 
many sensitive young people. As I look at Jesus, 
I think it is worth repeating, “‘ Temptation in itself 
is no sin.” 

I cannot emphasise this enough for the sheer 
commonsense and sanity of our religious life. 
People have come to me with words like these,—* I 
am in plain despair about myself. I try to live as 
much like my Lord as I can: but do what I will, at 
some unguarded moment, wretched thoughts steal 
into my mind, and not only pollute my heart but 
ruin my peace and happiness. Am I an evil thing 
that these gaunt spectres steal into my thoughts? 
Is there anything wrong or foul in me, that these 
masterless dreams master me? Am [I tainted be- 


42 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


cause in spite of myself I think these thoughts and 
dream these dreams? ”’ 

This is no fancied difficulty. It is real, hideously 
real, to many sensitive and pure-minded souls. The 
more pure-minded we are, the greater is our diffi- 
culty. May I answer the question simply by point- 
ing you here to Jesus? 

We believe that He was without stain. But we 
know that He was not without temptation! Either 
temptation in itself is no sin, or else Jesus was not 
without sin. But the big human fact of the gospels 
is that Jesus was tempted, tempted indeed in such 
agony as you and I can never comprehend, tempted 
till the sweat stood on His brow like drops of blood. 
He was tempted in all points as we are, yet with- 
out sin. 

It is our Christian duty to aim at a clean soul, and 
especially at some self-mastery of our own vagrant 
thoughts. By discipline and watchfulness, we be- 
lieve it is possible, in Jesus, to attain to this great 
ideal. By His aid, we may gradually make our 
minds a home for chaste and worthy things just 
as by the reverse we may make them a little 
painted hell. 

That is all true. A clean mind and heart may 
indeed be the beautiful reward of daily faithfulness. 
But none the less it needs to be said that temptation 
is as natural to us as it was to Jesus: and in itself it 
is no sin. Our very gift of thinking, the more it 
discharges its own function and weighs or con- 


Fh ey 
THE ANGUISH 43 


siders possibilities, brings temptation in its train. 
This we cannot escape, nor is it desirable that we 
should. ‘Temptation is the obvious penalty of a 
great privilege, the genius of which lies in debating 
opposites. 

I venture these two remarks. 

On the one hand, remember that daily resistance 
ends by bestowing a sure mastery and builds up 
reserve strength. 

On the other hand, the only sin in temptation is 
when we play or sport with its suggestion, when 
we caress it, fondle it, coquette with it, and finally, 
when we succumb. Sin enters when we slacken the 
curb, and let go the rein. 

Jesus was tempted. 

Jesus did not fall. 


VI 

The source of Christ’s victory lay in an unfailing 
reliance on God. | 

Have you observed that on each occasion Jesus 
slew His temptation with a text, as a hunter uses a 
particular bullet for his gun? That does not mean 
that texts are magical or will do their own work 
independently of us. But it does suggest how 
richly and intimately Christ leant back on the 
known records of God’s mind and how He steeped 
Himself in God’s spirit. The Bible may save no 
one, as a priest may save no one: for both may be 
equally outside of us. But it is true to say that if 


44 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


the word of God is in our hearts, it will give all 
needed light, courage, and direction: and out of it, 
as from a divine magazine, a man may draw 
some bullets that may slay the suggestions of his 
own soul. 

The secret is to know God’s mind, walk in His 
plain ways, and lean heavily on His strength. 

Thus alone did Jesus pass through His anguish. 


III 
THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT— 
(B) THE VICTORY 


ereso~a EH have considered the general conditions 
oN ul of this amazing struggle in the desert, 
MM where Jesus fought for His own soul 

MAS and His own ideas of Himself, as a 
man battles with a strong enemy who wills his 
death. 

As we saw, this scene is in no sense a dra- 
matic allegory picturesquely told, or a piece of 
idealised experience cast into an imaginary form 
for literary appeal. Jesus is too simple and 
sincere to be guilty of invention or to play for 
artistic effect. 

The incident represents a fierce agony where His 
soul was torn with its own desires and allurements, 
a thing of sweat and blood, an experience that lay 
like a searing memory on His heart. In later days 
He spoke of it to His disciples to show them the 
depths through which He had waded to victory, 
and also to give them the inspiration of His own 
contest and triumph. Even then, in the after-look, 
the whole experience was so living and vivid to 
Him that He threw the story into this dramatic 


45 








46 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


form as being the only way in which the thing 
could be pictured as the titanic struggle it was. 


We noted, also, that in the last resort temptation 
is wholly an inward event. If evil is to be real to 
us, it cannot be merely hypothetical, but must enter 
the mind as a possible seduction. 

This was fully true of Jesus. 

Fach line of conduct which He debated and re- 
jected must have presented itself to His mind with 
some attractiveness. “ Satan o’ercomes none but 
by willingnesse.’’ Each represented, at least, a pos- 
sible alternative. Otherwise, there would be no 
agony here, and the scene itself would not be worth 
recording. It 7s worth recording just because it 
shows us Christ’s soul in its seething turmoil. For 
our good,—and that we might know the kind of 
Master we serve—He expressed His inner experi- 
ence in this flashing manner. 

The wicked thing that He faced was so over- 
poweringly real and menacing that He pictured it 
as a personal antagonist who sought to argue His 
soul into Hell. When all is said, that represents 
the final truth. In any case, it is right to say that 
one who knows temptation as Jesus knew it, knows 
also that in its essence evil is a personal spirit. 
Satan becomes brutally real to agonised souls. 


I ask you now to consider the dilemma that faced 
Jesus in the heart of this scene. 





He BOSD MOU OTe a 47 


What was this dilemma? 

If my judgment then was right, I showed you 
what the Baptism meant for Him. It was a token 
and proof of His full awakening to God’s call, His 
own mission, and the powers that lay slumbering in 
Him. During and after the Baptism, as one might 
touch a secret spring, these powers broke loose in 
Him, summoned into consciousness by the majesty 
of the experience in His own heart. A big revela- 
tion is always a kind of superb intoxication, an in- 
spiration that may produce a spiritual metabolism 
as real as the change from the grub to the chrysalis. 
These powers, thus stirred, surged through Him as 
the blood flows through our veins. He was con- 
scious, as never before, of the dominant force of 
God within Him. He awoke to a knowledge of 
majestic power. > 


The circumstances in which He faced His di- 
lemma seem to me to agree with the nature of the 
dilemma itself. I like that reference in St. Mark— 
“He was with the wild beasts.’ There could be 
no fitter companions for Him at that moment than 
these beasts of the wilderness. They represented 
rapacious and unhallowed power, whose only mo- 
tive was passion and the indulgence of desire, 
uncontrolled by reason or pity. 

This suggests one unvarying temptation of 
power, to which indeed countless men have suc- 
cumbed for the world’s curse. If I understand our 


48 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


Lord’s debate aright, the question for Him centred 
here—“ How shall I use my power?” He felt 
that He dare not wield the weapon in His hands, 
until He had defined the spirit and the aims for 
which He would stand. 

Would His power be hallowed or unhallowed? 
Like God, or like these wild beasts? 

This is His dilemma. 


The three temptations that assailed Him so 
fiercely are concerned solely with the possible mis- 
use of power. He had now His work to do. He 
had now the needed power to do it. How would 
He handle His power, this unique endowment? 

As I read the meaning of this strange scene, 
He was tempted here to employ His power in 
three suggested ways. He might misuse it for 
His own good. He might misuse it for the 
good of others. He might misuse it for the good 
of God. 

I use the word “good” deliberately. I believe 
that the subtlety of the temptation lies in the fact 
that there was no evil in any of the suggestions. 
Each represented a just and honourable use of His 
powers, against which there could be no reasonable 
reproach. A good use, not an evil! A good use, 
but not the best! Here, as always, it is the “ merely 
good” that is the enemy of the best. Jesus was not 
deciding between the low and the high, but between 
the high and the highest. 


THE FICTORY 49 


I 

After His long debate and self-scrutiny, our 
Lord awoke to the stinging fact that He was 
hungry. 

Have you experienced what a commanding and 
imperious thing hunger is? I question if there is 
anything that slashes the veneer from men and 
women like desperate hunger. It stirs the tiger in 
us, out for its kill. 

Christ was hungry. 

He had been so absorbed for days,—as I have 
seen people so absorbed in sorrow,—that He had 
felt no need or desire for food. Then in this deso- 
late place, miles from anywhere, He suddenly 
awoke to the fact that He was starving. 

At a moment like this a man will do anything 
merely to appease the pangs of nature, even eat 
dried grass and munch sticks like a ravenous camel. 
Hunger has literally changed the face of the world. 
It has sent droves of gaunt-faced Goths and Mon- 
gols, rolling like waves, to swamp the most ancient 
civilisations. Hunger has been the world’s master. 


I can imagine what took place. 

Dazed with His long fast and His absorption in 
debate, Jesus looked weariedly around. His eyes lit 
on some stones scattered loosely at His feet. At 
first He looked at them as though not seeing them. 
Then a curious startling temptation edged itself 
into His mind, as by a kind of natural suggestion. 


O05, THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


Most of us know the fantastic fashion in which 
some stones may resemble the flat Eastern cakes 
His own mother must often have made on her sim- 
ple griddle in the home at Nazareth. With a kind 
of reminiscent smile, picking one of them up, Jesus 
may well have said, “ Would that it were indeed one 
of my mother’s cakes! ”’ 

Then still lovingly reminiscent, ‘One of my 
mother’s cakes! . . . Why! I can taste them 
now!” 


Then the temptation flashed into His heart like a 
spasm of pain. 

“Why not make this stone in my hand bread? 
I feel God’s creative power within me. Let 
me test it for my own pain. To satisfy hunger 
is a noble and just thing. Why should I not 
use God’s endowment of grace to appease my 
appalling need, lest I drop here and perish with 
faintness? . . . Besides, this will be a decisive 
test whether I truly possess these powers I feel 
within me!” 

The temptation was so acute and the need so im- 
perious that He heard a voice, as you and I have 
heard a voice, saying, “The stones, Jesus, the 
stones!” 

“Make them bread! You will surely die here in 
this desert, a mock Christ, unless you do. 

And may it not be your duty to test your new en- 
dowment—here in this place, where no eye can see 





LEB LOLORY oe 


you if you fail? You must surely prove it some- 
time. Why not here, lest when you try it before 
people, you fail and be laughed at?” 

“The stones, Jesus, the stones! . . . What 
is wrong with it?” 

There was nothing wrong with it. That is the 
appeal of the temptation. To save life and satisfy 
dominant need would have been an honourable and 
seemly use of His gifts. This is the crux of His 
dilemma-—that the act would have been a clean use 
of power! 


Why did He refuse? 

Have you seen the beauty of this magnificent re- 
fusal? Let me tell you why He refused. He 
refused for me. He would never have been my 
Saviour, if He had not refused. 

For one day, when I was in a tight corner, Jesus 
might have come and whispered to me, “ Lad, be 
brave. Bear it like a man, though it tear your soul 
to tatters! Bear it, lad.” 

Then I would have turned to Jesus and cried, 
“Who are you to speak to me? I remember that 
time in the desert when you were in a tight corner. 
What did you do? You used God’s special endow- 
ment for your own ends. ‘That unique gift denied 
tous! You used it just to save yourself from con- 
sequences that millions of men have had to endure. 
O! I know you were hungry: but we are often 
hungry. It is easy for you to speak, Jesus. You 


52 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


got yourself out of your tight corner by a little 
private miracle.” 
And that would have finished Jesus for me! 


“The stones, Jesus, the stones!” 

Then thinking of me and my poor human limita- 
tions, He turned on His own temptation and cried, 
** Get thee behind me, Satan.” 

And, at the end, He left that desert, staggering 
like a drunken man, weak with appalling hunger, 
until He reached the nearest farm-cottage, and lean- 
ing feebly on the lintel, begged, as I would do, for 
a cup of water and a crust of bread! 

For there in that desert, He put Himself 
solely and simply on my level that He might 
endure what I must endure. For my sake, He 
refused to aid Himself by any powers denied to 
me. And this He did, “emptying Himself,” in 
order that, being like me, He might become my 
Saviour. 

That is why He zs my Saviour! 

Such a Master! 


II 


The second scene represents the possible misuse 
of His powers for the good of others. Again I 
stress “ for the good of others.’ That is the heart 
of the temptation. 

He is sitting there on a spur of rock with His 
chin resting on His hands, looking out wistfully on 


THE VICTORY 53 


the scattered world of men and women whom He 
so passionately wishes to save and serve. 

How can He do it? 

How can He attract these careless, self-centred, 
worldly, idly-busy people down in the cities and vil- 
lages of Galilee and Judea? If only He could 
arrest and grip them! If only He could interest 
them straight-a-way! If only He could fascinate 
them, even in spite of themselves! Would it not 
be worth while to do something that might arrest 
and startle, win their interest, so that from that He 
might go on to deeper things? 

Mark you—to deeper things! 


I wonder if anyone can appreciate this dilemma 
of our Lord just so much as a modern preacher. 
In my own little measure, with every other min- 
ister, I have felt the appeal of this debate. I have 
questioned at times if it might not be a good and 
gracious policy, for God and my people, to do some 
outré and startling thing that would at least break 
the placid calm of solemn indifference, as a stone 
plops into a stagnant pool. Might I not be serving 
God and awakening thought, just by scandalising 
you? Could I not dazzle some of you into the 
arms of God? 

What would be wrong with that if only I did it 
for God and you? 


This is what tempted Jesus. 


54 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


He loved these people so deeply that He felt He 
could do anything to win them. But if He came 
preaching a simple message from God, would they 
listen to Him? Had they ever listened to any of 
God’s messengers on these terms? 

But suppose for a moment,—suppose He clam- 
bered up to the top of that pinnacle of the Temple, 
that one in the misty distance, when all the priests 
and people were gathered together for some big 
occasion. Some big occasion surely—perhaps the 
Passover! The people would be massed in their 
thousands: and it was the multitude He wished to 
impress. He might call aloud from the top. That 
would attract general and immediate attention. 
Every neck would be craned to look at Him. 
Jerusalem literally would stand agape! 

“What fool is that up on the pinnacle? 

Look at him! He is like a spider crawling along a 
sunbeam! . . . I cannot bear the sight: it makes 
me dizzy. . . . It is sheer madness! He will 
fall and be smashed to powder. . . . Heavens! 
He is going to jump! . . . He has jumped.” 

What a commotion! 

Then, when He landed lightly on His feet like a 
feather, and bowed smiling like a master jug- 
gler . . . !!! Noneed to blow a bugle! 

“Who is He? Who is He?” 

. “Tam Jesus, the messenger of God.” 

Think of it. Just to say that to a petrified audi- 

ence. “I am Jesus, the messenger of God.” 





THE VICTORY 55 


A programme like that—for God’s dear sake and 
ours—would certainly stir a gigantic curiosity. 
Not only would He have an unparalleled start for 
His ministry, but He would also convince the 
people of His own unique nature. The nation 
would hail Him at once as the promised Lord. 
This would ensure Him an eager, startled, awak- 
ened crowd who would hang on His lips with gap- 
ing awe. From that, what might He not do? 

If used by Jesus for higher ends, this might be a 
good and honourable use of power. To win these 
careless and indifferent people for the interests of 
God might in itself justify any means. Could 
power be better consecrated than in the blessed serv- 
ice of God? Remember, the blessed service of God! 

Further, for His own comfort, He might prove 
thereby the truth of God’s promises to His own 
soul. Here, in this lonely spot, away from judging 
eyes, this might be the best place to put God to a 
quiet and reassuring test! 


“Try the pinnacle, Jesus!” 

“All means are good that lead to God. You 
will arrest these Jews with a superb start, and you 
will bring in God’s Kingdom with a divine rush. 
You will convince them that you are the Messiah, 
with all the credentials of God’s power. What is 
wrong with it, Jesus? Remember, it is all for 
God’s blessed service. So try the pinnacle! God 
will bear thee up.” 


56 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


“Get thee behind me, Satan.” 

“T cannot become an ignoble conjuror even for 
God. I seek to win the world to goodness for the 
love of goodness, and to God for the love of God. 
IT come to preach a message of truth: and that must 
be accepted for its own pure sake. There is no 
other way of accepting it.” 


There are legitimate ways of arresting attention 
and winning interest. There are also ways, appar- 
ently successful, that only end in their own defeat. 
We may win people to think about God by certain 
devices—by clap-trap, by exploiting emotion, by 
sensationalism—but in the end these methods only 
lead people to despise both God and us. 

Every fair man will notice that throughout His 
life and ministry Jesus never worked any deed of 
wonder that would constrain people or win a 
kind of paralysed consent. Every good deed He 
wrought was from love or crying human need. He 
preached the full message of God, God’s love and 
God’s passion: but He left that message to do its 
_ own beautiful work. Our Lord will never go out 
of His way to work a miracle to convince us. 
Even if He did, it would not convince us. -: Per- 
haps that is the perfect answer. We can only be 
convinced of the truth by being convinced of the 
truth! ‘There is no other possible way. 

A young man said to me not long ago, “I am in 
such agony of doubt. If God would only give me 


ee ee ee 





THE VICTORY ay 


a sign from heaven to convince my soul.” 

My dear Sir, your soul can only be convinced by 
being convinced! If a thing is not true, a thou- 
sand miracles will not make it true. Jesus came 
into Galilee like a simple unheralded messenger, and 
He preached God and God’s love. If men and 
women do not take that on its sheer worth and 
truth, nothing in this earth will ever help them. 
The only legitimate argument for truth is that it 
is true. 

There will be no startling sign given unto this 
generation except “the sign of the prophet 
Jonah” ! And what was that? Simply an un- 
known tattered and unheralded man, a despised 
alien, without credentials and with no fictitious 
authority, preaching passionately the sin of man 
and the mercy of God. Nothing more. If truth 
does not convince you, what will? 

None the less, to win this people at once for 
God’s message was a real temptation for the eager 
soul of Jesus. He would have gasping crowds, 
convinced that He was the Messiah. Would it mat- 
ter much, even if they were “convinced” by a 
trick? 


Jesus played fair with human reason. 

So He left the desert trusting only in two 
things,—truth and God. He resolved that His 
message must stand or fall by its own worth. 

Walking into the first little village, He stood at 


58 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


a corner of the market-place, and cried passion- 
ately, “ Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at 
hand.” That is how He began His ministry. That 
is how He ended it. Even at the last, in Pilate’s 
palace, He refused “the legions of angels.” 

This is our Saviour, who offers God for His 
eternal worth alone. Repent, and believe the 


Gospel. 


IIT 


The third scene embodies a possible misuse of 
His powers for the good of God. Again, I stress 
the word “ good.” 

However much Jesus loved me, He loved God 
more. Indeed, He loved me because He loved God. 
It was the world for God that He wanted, this 
supremely. It was His dream and passion. How 
could He do it? If only He could win this world 
for God. 

Could the attainment of such a magnificent and 
holy end justify any means? Would it matter what 
means were used, so long as the end itself was at- 
tained? At any cost the world for God! But 
could it be at any cost? Honour, perhaps? Or 
His own dreams? 

If therefore He used His power to come to terms 
with the world—to strike a bargain or fix a com- 
promise—would that be wrong? Suppose He did 
not pitch His terms so high? Evil was already 
entrenched in the world: it had literally “ dug itself 








THE VICTORY 59 
in.” It possessed immense resources and vested 
interests. To fight it on a clear issue of life or 
death would mean a bitter business, Even if there 
must be war, are there not two ways of settling 
war—one, by fighting to the last ditch, the other, 
by treaty, an honourable arrangement ? 


It is the feasibility of a treaty that is the heart of 
this dilemma. Could Jesus deal in compromises? 

It might be better, even for God’s ends, to rule a 
decently reformed world, seriously reformed, than 
to insist on perfection and rule only a corner. If 
He graciously admitted the present state of things 
—say, that it is only human to err—if He de- 
manded a more lenient programme, might He not 
gain in large ways for God’s purposes? ‘The 
unlimited exactions of perfection, a gospel of 
thoroughness, might only lead to needless and 
prolonged antagonisms. But if He pruned His 
demands to the needs of the age and the imper- 
fections of man, He might so carry the world 
with Him that it might soon be almost, if not 
quite, God’s. 

“Tf you will own me, and acknowledge my 
power,—if you will fall down and worship me, 
even for a moment,—lI shall give you what your 
soul desires, the empire of the world. This is an 
easy way, and a speedy way, to win the world! If 
you do not come to terms with me, your way will 
be hard. Very hard. Look here, towards Jerusa- 





60 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 


lem. Do you observe that little hill, with a gaunt 
cross standing on it? That is the only throne 
you will ascend, if you do not accept my terms and 
align yourself with the world’s ideas. All I ask is 
a trifling recognition, a mere acknowledgment: and 
all these kingdoms of the world will I give you.” 

An alluring prospect! 

This would satisfy God, surely? This would 
satisfy Christ’s own personal ambition, surely? 
This would avoid that ghastly cross, the agony, and 
the apparent defeat. Not to run the flag just so 
high: and all for God’s dear sake! 

Jesus said, “ Get thee behind me, Satan.” 


Why did He say it? 

Simply because, like God, He would have all or 
nothing. Evil is the one thing with which God 
cannot compromise. Jesus must use God’s powers 
on God’s terms, and do God’s work with God’s 
tools. All or nothing! There is no other way for 
the Son of God. 


So He left the desert, cleansed of His own 
temptations. How bitter and seductive they were, 
we can but imperfectly guess. Our joy for ever 
lies in His victory. He went forth, in God’s 
strength, to walk the narrow path He had mapped 
out for Himself in His great debate. 

From that moment, in a natural self-enlighten- 
ment, He must have known where that path led. A 





THEME LCLORY: 61 


soul that saw so deeply into the mind of God could 
not help seeing as deeply into the mind of man. 
And there in the misty depths of human hatred, He 
could not but foresee the possibility of defeat. 
Defeat meant death. Death meant a cross. 


I understand now where He beat out that royal 
sentence: “ What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul? ” 

“ Strong Son of God.” 


IV 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
THE LURE OF A VACANT THRONE 


IN vif JO fair man may deny that Jesus walked 
PISS re > warily and in strict fulfilment of the 

AWNig| rigourous programme He had beaten 

ssi] out for Himself in the agony of the 
nay There He had definitely faced the issues 
as they affected His mission and His ministry. He 
had chosen His path, planned His campaign, de- 
fined His aims, and settled His loyalties. 

He began His ministry then in the clear spirit 
and with the definite aims foreshadowed in that 
Temptation scene. That is beyond all question. 

In spite of this, before He had gone far, He was 
forced to face a startling dilemma which arose 
and confronted Him from out of the facts and 
results of His own early work. This dilemma 
was so embarrassing and presented such incalcu- 
lable possibilities, that it is only fair to Jesus to 
show that it was not of His seeking but was 
forced on Him by the folly and bias of others. 
He did not diverge one hair-breadth from His 
own ideal and methods as settled in the desert: 
and yet He was called upon to consider a problem 


62 






THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 63 


that shook the whole dream of His ministry afresh 
to its foundations. 


I 


I find that most of the dilemmas of my own life 
are the result, conscious or unconscious, of my own 
acts. I can truly say that “if I had not done this ”’ 
or “if I had not said that,” I should not have been 
forced to face this or that unnerving problem. If, 
then, we are to acquit Jesus of being a party to His 
own dilemma, we must in honesty state certain 
things as clearly as possible. 


Let us observe that from the outset our Lord 
proclaimed only a spiritual message of high de- - 
mand. He dwelt entirely on the spiritual issues of 
God’s claim. There could be no possible. mistake 
about this in the mind of an unprejudiced hearer. 
Nothing either in His message or manner could 
appeal to lower views. He preached God, God 
alone,—God’s call, God’s love, God’s forgiveness, 
God’s Fatherhood. In all fairness it has to be said 
that if anyone mistook that message then he was 


guilty of the common human mistake of reading 


his own bias into Christ’s words. Our Lord’s 
position in this matter was as clear as sunlight. 


Further, His gospel of the Kingdom was plainly 
stated and unmistakably spiritual. He dwelt, for 
instance, on the nature of the Kingdom. It is 


64. THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 


within you, He said, and it comes with no outward 
appearance or pretension. . . . As faithfully, 
He announced its terms and its objects. Its terms 
—repentance, faith, and a God-like heart. Its ob- 
jects—the salvation of the human soul and the 
salvation of the world of human souls. 

And even more pointedly, He unfolded its demands 
—the good life lived in God, love and charity to 
others, and a life of gracious sacrifice. Is it pos- 
sible that any unbiassed hearer could make a mis- 
take about this definite programme? 


Once more, lest any unthinking person might be 
misled, He deliberately limited Himself in the 
working of His wonders. There is no record or 
‘suggestion of any great deed wrought by Him for 
display, for personal pleasure, for publicity, or for 
its own sake. If we examine His works of grace, 
we Shall find that He never exercised His power 
except at the call of urgent need or from the pas- 
sion of His own love. For, as I tried to show you, 
the temptation to juggle with His mysterious 
powers or to dazzle the multitude by display had 
been faced and settled in that lonely struggle in the | 
desert. From that He never swerved. 


still more, a supreme point to notice, Jesus : 
always sought to keep a firm control of public en- — 
thusiasm. Whenever it grew too ardent or threat- 
ened to become unreasoning, He quietly withdrew — 


THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 65 


Himself to other towns, as if to allow the simmer- 
ing passion to cool. Again and again, in this same 
connection, He cautioned grateful people whom He 
had helped not to publish or blazon His reputation 
abroad. It is remarkable how often the records tell 
us that He warned this one or that one to “ tell no 
man.” It is quite plain what this means. These 
injunctions of silence are part of a reasoned policy, 
—RHis desire to win acceptance for the truth of 
His message alone, not for the startling deeds 
which might so easily inflame the unbalanced 
popular imagination. 

All this is true and needs to be said, in view of 
what took place. 


II 


In spite of this quiet programme, the result of 
His early ministry was astounding. He leapt at 
once into an amazing popularity,—the kind of 
boundless acclamation that has so often turned the 
heads of great men and twisted them into looking 
down wrong lanes. 

As the records plainly show, Jesus had the whole 
body of the people at His heels like a flock of 
sheep. Even His enemies,—dubious of Him but 
fascinated, their hostility still half-dormant,—could 
not tear themselves from His influence. He was 
the idol of the countryside: and every village for 
miles around sent its quota each day to swell the 
multitude. The crowds about Him were insuffer- 


66 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 


able in their pressure, for they beleaguered Him 
day and night. Their unending demands broke all 
endurance,—even Christ’s. Often He had to steal 
away to a mountain-top or a desert place, not only 
for private prayer, but for sheer rest. 

But perhaps with Him these two were one. 
Prayer was Rest! 


Have you ever considered how little private life 
Jesus had at this time? | 

We know what private life means to us. Any — 
one who lives in the public eye realises that some — 
private life may mean the salvation of his soul—a 
stolen moment in the day—a corner of the home 
which he can call his own and where he may relax 
and become his natural self. This privilege often 
saves our sanity! I am told that even the leather- 
belts and chains of machinery need to be frequently 
relaxed if their efficiency is to be preserved. We 
are delicate machinery! 

Jesus had no private life. 

Even when the prying eyes of the crowd were off 
Him, there were the speculating eyes of these 
twelve big men boring Him through. He was 
hedged round with eyes, a ring of eyes. Eyes 
everywhere,—kindly or critical, adoring or ques- 
tioning, reverent or cynical. Eyes that cursed or 
eyes that caressed, eyes that were either an envy or 
a benediction. But eyes! Always eyes! We read 
so often that they ‘ watched’ Him. 


\ 


THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 67 


None the less, the amazing thing to me is how 
simple, how unconsciously unaffected, how serenely 
natural He remained through it all. There is not 
the suggestion of a strut, a pose, or an affectation 
about the simple unspoiled Jesus. Anyone who 
lives much in the public gaze knows how easy it is 
—often how necessary it is—to acquire subtle 
affectations, a social or a business manner, or a 
protecting pose. A prince’s smile: a politician’s 
vagueness: a doctor’s manner: a business man’s 
hustle: a parson’s gravity :—so much of it all, not 
really insincere, is only a subtle defence against the 
unending demands of constant publicity! I have 
never met a public man whom I could not convict 
of a suspicion of Strut. I do not condemn him in 
the least: it often saves his sanity! 

But there it is! , 

The amazing thing in Jesus is the unvarying _ 
simplicity, naturalness and honesty of His whole 
life, without pose or posture or affectation. He 
was always Jesus, never the official prophet. 

That in itself is something that needs to be 
accounted for. 


| Til 
Unfortunately, this popularity was not only 
blind and ignorant, but based on false hopes, 
founded on crude popular misconceptions and base- 
less dreams. The people were gasping for a 
worldly Kingdom, a free Jewish empire, a nation 


68 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 


that could lift the heel of Rome from its throat, a 
lordly people that might dominate the world in 
earthly grandeur and revive the lost glories of 
the past. 

Now comes a real touch of irony. 

In spite of His plain unvarnished message, as I 
have sketched it to you, these people imagined that 
they saw in Jesus the type of leader they wanted. 
Could self-deception go farther? This big man of 
power would lead them! Here was the Messiah, 
the very Messiah they desired! 

This is one of the great ironical situations in 
history. 

Not once but always Jesus said, “The Kingdom 
of Heaven cometh not with observation.” 

“The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” 

Yet they came by force to make Him a King. 


IV 


It is historically true that if Jesus had made even 
a trifling departure from His own perfect pro- 
gramme, He might have set the heather on fire. It 
is surely worth a thought—what a changed world 
it would have been, if He had faltered here! The 
simmering political and social discontent only 
needed a spark. ‘To my mind, that spark was an 
ambitious man, a leader with some power behind 
him, one who could invoke and hold human 
loyalties. 

None could have done that better than Jesus. 





THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 69 


Could our Lord so rearrange His own ideas and 
so reconstruct His own programme that He might 
make use of this great leverage for the ends of His 
Kingdom? 

It was a chance such as had never entered into 
any other life. The unrest did not need to be 
created. It was there. The passion was there. 
The people were there. Most of all, the opportunity 
was there. And if you think of it, it is oppor- 
tunity that generally suggests a way for us to damn 
ourselves. More men are led astray by a plausible 
opportunity than by their own native passions, 
Opportunity is the mid-wife to desire. 


“ How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 
Makes ill deeds done.” 


V 


They came by force to make Him a King. 

Hot with their age-long wrongs, carried away by 
their own dreams and desires, seeing in Jesus an 
evident source of majestic power, they came to 
force His hand. 

They would lead Him to a vacant throne. 

Our question is, whether Jesus, when ap- 
proached by this mob of a committee, could con- 
sider their offer and become an opportunist? He 
could justly urge that He had not sought this 
dénouement. Indeed He could assert beyond all 
question that He had avoided it. He had used no 


70 TEE DOT LEMMA "OF PORU fa Riiy 


unjust means to buy such outrageous popularity. 
But now that it had come,—unsought and even un- 
wanted,—might He not use this unique chance, 
purified of course, for the ends of God? ~ 

This, I think, was a real dilemma. 


VI 

Flow great the dilemma was, we may see if for 
a wild moment we imagine that Jesus accepted the 
challenge. Suppose He said, “I shall use this 
superb chance that is thrust upon me for the glory 
of God.” 

Had He said so, I believe that there is a good 
line of argument in which He could have fully 
justified Himself to us and the world. Remember 
that we judge Him now by His own best standards. 
If He had never given us these standards,—as in 
this present refusal—how would we judge His 
acceptance? 

1. To begin with, the chance was wholly un- 
sought. It came to Him as a kind of “act of 
God.” Many of us indeed might have read “ provi- 
dence ”’ in such a circumstance. 

2. Further, He might have argued justly that 
He and He alone could direct this movement in 
gracious ways and to magnificent ends. We have 
no idea what a popular movement might accom- 
plish, with a leader like Jesus at its head. Think of 
it calmly for a moment. A great social and po- 
litical regeneration, promoted and inspired by a 


. 


: 
: 
. 


THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 71 


pure force like Jesus,—why! the idea is an intoxi- 
cation! It would revolutionise all systems and 
cleanse all governments. What a world it might 
have been! 

3. Moreover, although the movement was selfish 
and aggressive so far as the Jews were concerned, 
He could have introduced into the crusade His own 
redeeming passion. He could have given it a 
world-wide turn and a God-like turn. He could 
have made His own conditions and introduced His 
own ideals. And whatever happened, being what 
He was, He would certainly have brought an im- 
mense social betterment to the oppressed peoples of 
the world. He could have changed history more 
deeply and for infinitely better ends than Alexander 
or Napoleon. 

4, In any case, although it meant warfare, is it 
not sometimes a good thing to use power to crush 
omnipotent evil and to correct the flagrant injus- 
tices of a rotten world? The arm of force, used 
justly, brings its own remedy with speed and does 
not ask a needy world to wait for the slow evolving 
ways of argument and persuasion. While we rea- 
son and wrestle for “spiritual conviction,’ mil- 
lions are dying in ruin. Gracious force might do 
in a year what persuasion could not accomplish in 
centuries. 

5. Again, although such a use of force might 
not be the highest employment of His power, yet in 
a world like this we have to take things as they are 


De PHE DILEMMA OF NPOPU LARLY 


and men as they are. We have to strive not for 
impossible ideals but for what is humanly prac- 
ticable. If men will not accept the best, may we 
not use the second-best ? 

6. Further, there might be bloodshed. But is it 
not a squeamish and overwrought conscience that 
considers bloodshed always wrong? In the long 
run, there might be less bloodshed in correcting one 
immense wrong, now and for ever, than in allowing 
a thousand smaller wrongs to remain, injustices 
that daily exact their own cruel levy. The little 
driblets, when put in the bucket, might be worse 
than one big welter,—say, “one war to end 
war ’’! 

7. In any case, judged from any angle, would 
this opportunity not bring a golden day nearer,—a 
great age of political justice, righteous rule, and the 
supreme honour of God? 

8. And finally, even if Jesus were to accede to 
this appeal of ambition, is there anything wrong 
with a personal ambition that has the best ends of 
others locked in its heart? Ambition, nobly used, 
has been one of God’s most blessed gifts to a strug- 
gling world. 


These are not arguments which I have invented. 
I have heard them used every day by good men, and 
greeted with cheers in our commercial and political 
life. Why might Jesus not use them, too, in a far 
purer cause than anybody ever planned? 





THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 73 


Vil 

If He had accepted, what then? 

I can give the best answer by guessing why He 
refused. 

1. He came to offer men one thing and one thing 
only,—Gop. But God is a personal offer to a man’s - 
soul, and must be personally and intelligently ac- 
cepted. We can never force a man to accept God 
against his reason. We might as well compel an 
astronomer to believe that the sun moves round the 
earth. We may compel him to say it, as they once 
compelled Galileo: but we cannot compel him to 
believe it. 

In the same way, a man can only believe in God 
as his soul compels him, not as anybody else com- 
pels him. That is why all religious persecutions 
and all so-called “holy wars” are sheer futilities. 
We may command assent: but we cannot command 
belief. 

Now, Jesus came to offer the world Gop! He 
therefore refused to use His power to subdue the 
world, because, even if He had subdued it, He could 
never subdue it to God. The good life in God is 
something that must be deliberately chosen. Chris- 
tianity does not deal in conscripts but in volunteers. 


2. My second reason is a corollary from this. 
We cannot “ save the world ” or “‘ save the masses ” 
as our saying goes. It is a foolish phrase. Wecan 
only save the individuals who are in the world. 


74 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 


Salvation is a personal matter. We are saved when 
we turn to God in our great need and choose Him 
as Lord and Saviour. 

In early days, a missioner might go to the court 
of a Frankish King. If he converted the King, that 
lord might then order his whole tribe to be con- 
verted with him. They were baptised in solid 
droves and blocks. Another nation for Christ! 
Converted! 

But of course they were not converted. For con- 
version is always and only a matter of personal 
conviction: it is a soul turning to God as a flower 
turns to the light, and deliberately choosing God. 
One cannot be converted in any other way. 

Hence, since Jesus came only to preach and pro- 
claim God, and since God can only be accepted as 
we give our hearts to Him, force was the last 
weapon He could use. (I think it is also the last 
weapon His Church can use.) For His high ends, 
it would matter next to nothing though He con- 
quered and subdued the whole world, so long as He 
did not win their love. To gain even one man’s 
love was a greater victory than to have a conquered 
world prostrate at His feet. 


3. Further, this suggested plan of a great na- 
tional movement represented the second best. But 
after the Temptation, Jesus never dealt in second 
bests! He sought a man’s heart, not his person: 
his love, not his mere obedience. A slave may 


LLL 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 75 


obey: but Jesus does not deal in slaves. His trade 
is in the free affections of a heart that gives itself 
gladly, not because it is driven, but because it is 
won. ‘That is the best,—God’s best and Christ’s 
best. If He cannot get this, He will have nothing 
else. He may stand at the door and knock. We 
know He does. But He will never push that door 
open or steal in unwanted. by an unsnibbed window. 


4. Christ never put social and political pro- 
grammes first. He never even put temporal wel- ~ 
fare first. Let the modern world listen! 

I do not say that He despised these things, or did 
not give them their due importance and place. No 
one cared more for people and their temporal wel- 
fare than our Lord. He fed hunger: He healed 
disease: He corrected wrongs: He declared justice: 
He cured insanity: He preached a clean, pure life. 
None ever did these things more passionately, be- 
cause if the truth be told none ever loved so dearly. 
It might be well if the modern church cared for 
these things as much as Jesus, 

But Christ’s was a love big enough to wish the 
best, not the second best. He knew that the su- 
preme thing a man needs is a saved soul, a heart 
right with God and touched by His love. As an 
immediate social consequence, we know that when 
the heart is right with God, truly right, it will be 
right with man. It is a vision of God that gives 
us the finest vision of man. I question indeed if 


76 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 


our heart will ever be right with man until it is 
right with God. 

So you will not find any social or political pro- 
grammes in Jesus. You may find much in His 
teaching and life that may help and inspire your 
programme. But it will be your programme, not 
His! Iam tired of those who read the New Testa- 
ment as if it were a modern social tract or a treatise 
on Economics. The people who speak of Jesus as 
if He came merely to affect our social welfare, or 
give happiness, or a “ good time ”’ do not know the 
first thing about His message. 

He gave the inspiration for all good programmes, 
for He gave the love for God, man, truth, justice, 
peace, and equality,—the basis of all good pro- 
grammes. But programmes die: it is a habit they 
have. The inspiration remains. And that is why, 
when all our modern platforms are demolished, 
Jesus will be eternally used as the buttress of every 
good scheme. He alone gives the love, the truth, 
and the passion that make men dream of Utopias 
and work for a coming Kingdom. 

He gives God, the secret of all progress. 


Vill 


“Come and be our King, Master: and bring in a 
glad new empire that will sweep evil by force into 
life’s dust-bin.” 

But Jesus slipped away from the acclaiming 
crowds. He climbed up that hill behind the multi- 





THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY TY, 


tude: He fell on His knees: He prayed passion- 
ately all night long to God. . . . When the 
dawn came, it rose also in His own soul. 

Then in the morning, when the people knew by 
His face that He had refused, the fickle crowds fell 
away from Him as leaves drop from the frosted 
trees in November. He was a crank, not a 
Messiah. 

Jesus was left once more with His little com- 
pany. “ Will ye also go away?” He asked. I can 
imagine the wistfulness of His note as He looked 
at the dwindled band. Had they, too, joined Him 
from false motives? 

Peter cried—(God bless you, Peter, though I 
know that even you must have been heart-broken 
when Jesus pushed that glittering crown aside)— 
Peter cried, “ Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou 
hast the words of Eternal life.” 

I believe that Jesus smiled. 


So He settled His great dilemma. He refused 
the vacant throne. 
Unless you count the cross a throne? 


V 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 


Gis|F we have done anything so far, we 
Wa\ have at least seen that our Lord’s life 
was as full of problems and unnerving 
decisions as any human life could be. 
His vocation did not ensure Him any ignoble 
freedom from temptation, but only a noble cour- 
age against its attacks. Even to see a fact like this 
may be an immense spiritual gain for us. 

For one thing, it will help to destroy that inane 





picture of a calm passionless Christ who marched . 


along our tortured ways with unclouded serenity, 
and who therefore had little touch with us and no 
appeal for our tempted souls. 

I consider that our chief gain in this study of 
His problems will lie in our rediscovering His 
ancient agonies and finding how He had to wrestle 
through, by perfect communion with the Father, to 
His own hard-won victory. If we see this, I think 
He will stand by us as a real Saviour, made like us, 
who by His victory can transform us until we are 
_made like Him. For it is only as He is one with 


/ us in our temptations, that He can ever make us one 


with Him in His victory. 


78 








THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 19) 


One may freely admit that an ideal and a passion 
such as possessed Him may have rescued Him from 
many of the petty deviations and allurements that 


curse our peace. This is true. When our eyes are ~~ 


fixed on a star we are not so ready to see the mud 
that lies at our feet. Hence we may well admit 
that Jesus may have been saved from many of our 
commonest fleshly snares. But if this is so, is it 
not also true that like Him we too may possess a 
protecting dream, and may thereby be saved from 
a mind too easily distracted and allured? 

On the other hand, the possession of such an 
ideal as Christ had may bring its own peculiar and 
typical temptations. Not the least of these is the 
constant discord between the ideal and reality, the 
hard brutal facts of ordinary living. We find 
among ourselves that the higher we pitch our ideal, 
the deeper is our constant puzzle. The man who 
takes life easily goes through it easily. But the 
very purity of our ideal brings its own spiritual 
danger: for when measured against life, it may 
induce petulance, impatience, contempt and pride. 
We have seen it even in the best souls. Thus I 
imagine that none of us can be tempted as fiercely 
as Jesus, simply because none of us has the peerless 
dream He had in His heart. 

We pay for our ideals in subtle ways. 


So far the dilemmas Christ had to settle were per- 


sonal, springing from the debate in His own soul. 


80 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 


He had, for instance, to settle the spirit in which 
He would do His unique work. He had also to 
define the aims of His work. Finally, He had to 
formulate the methods by which He would carry it 
out in practice. ‘These dilemmas arose out of the 
native purity of His own heart, and out of the 
special quality of His work. 

In this and the succeeding chapters I turn to two 
problems which were thrust upon Him by others. 
They are dilemmas of judgment rather than of con- 
duct. Perhaps, indeed, some might be inclined to 
call them “conundrums” rather than dilemmas. 
But this at least may be said of them, that each of 
them presented Jesus with a distinct choice. His 
answer, one way or the other, meant much for His 
ministry and for us. 


I 


By this time, the hostility of the Pharisees had 
become compact and even desperate. They had 
reached that point in their aversion when they were 
ready to attempt anything that could either trip or 
convict Jesus. 

In their personal bias, they imagined that He was 
not only their individual enemy, but also the enemy 
of their system. To quote the words of John the 
Baptist, they came to see that the axe was not only 
threatening the branches, but was laid at the root 
of the tree. Hence they began to surround Him on 
every conceivable occasion and tempt Him in every 


a ee se ~~ 


THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 81 


suggestible way to see if they might unearth some 
plausible excuse for a charge that might silence 
Him for good. 

By painful experience, however, they had dis- 
covered that Jesus was a doughty opponent. On 
occasion, He had actually turned their own guns 
against themselves. They had now grown cun- 
ningly cautious. ‘‘ Once bitten is twice shy.” 

It must have been an annoyance beyond bearing 
to these domineering ecclesiastics that this “ unlet- 
tered’’ man should have held them so easily at 
arm’s length. They had regarded Him at first with 
a kind of tolerant wonder, which had changed into 
an intolerant contempt, and finally had hardened 
into an intolerable anger. 


There is nothing just so dangerous as narrow \~~ 
goodness. Sometimes it is more dangerous than 
open sin. For this narrow goodness generally per- ; _ 
suades itself that its own form of goodness is the ~ 
only possible. 

We must never forget that the Pharisees were 
good men, ready to suffer for their own ideas of 
God. Our modern picture of them, our very use 
of the word “ Pharisee,” is a foolish and ignorant 
libel. ‘These men saved the religious life of their| 
own day, and saved it nobly. 

But they were bigots for their own forms andt—~ 
their own narrow ideas of truth. There is no 
enemy of growing truth so bitter as a bigot. The 


eR PEER NEN ASST 
82 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 


Pharisees made up their minds that Christ’s type 
of religion was really worse than sin. Sin at least 
was an open enemy; but Jesus was subtly under- 
mining the whole edifice of God. They resolved 
that this man must be wrecked, by fair means 
or foul. 

It is certainly worth observing that Jesus was 
crucified not by men who were wicked, as we com- 
monly understand the term, but by men who 
were “ good.” 


IT 


After many galling repulses, they now feel that 
they must plot out some deep move. Simple but 
deep! The more guileless, the better. 

First of all, in their twisted hate of Jesus, they 
did a curious thing. They enlisted the aid of the 


/ Herodians. Strange bed-fellows, surely! ‘T'o see 
“ the Pharisees and the Herodians—ancient enemies 


—whispering together in eager alliance almost 
_/ makes one smile. So might one laugh to see an old 
./“ Die-hard” and a Hyde Park Orator plotting out 
- a common political agreement! 

Look at them for a moment. Such a queer alli- 
ance deserves a passing glance. 

On the one hand, the Pharisees. . . . The 
strictest of the strict, the Puritans of their day, 
rigid and _ stiff-backed nationalists, who would 
acknowledge no rule and no King but the Lord 
Jehovah, the preachers of a spiritual democracy! 





THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 83 


On the other hand, the Herodians. . . . The 
political party who adhered to the dynasty of 
Herod, the apostate Jews who strutted like pea- 
cocks about the court of Kings, the Royalist 
cavaliers of their age, the kind of men who 
might flatter even the Herods about the divine 
right of Kings! 

To see them together, plotting against Jesus, is a 
spectacle. It is more than that. It is a unique in- 
stance of lesser hates driven out by a greater, a 
proof that all the varied forms of evil can club 
together to defeat goodness. Pharisees and Herod- 
ians, with their heads glued together in that corner, 
to “down”’ Jesus, their common foe! 


I do not know who suggested it—though it has 
a typically Herodian touch—but between them, 
they devised a clever move. 

First of all, as an accomplished courtier might 
do, one who believes in the oily art of flattery, they 
concocted a choice tribute to Jesus. Indeed, I ques- 
tion if there is any finer tribute to our Lord than 
this preamble they composed. It is doubly valuable 
to us today, for it is that rare thing, the testimony 
of enemies. 

I do not say that they believed their own words: 
but in a true sense, their words were what they be- 
lieved in spite of themselves. Since they were 
insincere, they lied when they spoke the truth: but 
since they were really expressing the impression 


84 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 


Jesus made on their hearts, they spoke the truth 
when they lied. 


Their next move was even more clever. 

They guessed that if either of them, Pharisees or 
Herodians, approached Jesus openly, He would be 
on His guard at once. Their plan was to take Him 
unawares. There must be nothing obvious or 
challenging. 

So they gathered together some young men,— 
students, fresh open-faced young lads, disciples of 
one of the schools. From their point of view, this 
was distinctly clever. (Though from our point of 
view today, this in itself was a singular testimony 
to Jesus.) They knew and counted on Christ’s 
interest in any young artless enquirer. They be- 
lieved—is it not an unconscious tribute to Jesus ?— 
that He would welcome such genuine seekers, wor- 
ried with problems. How His big heart would 
open to any groping puzzled soul! And here were 
some young men, enquiring students, wrestling 
with life’s problems, knocking at His door! 

A clever touch indeed! 

Clever, if they had not been dealing with Jesus! 


Iil 


The first scene in the play I might call the Com- 
edy in the Green Room. 

Having carefully chosen their young students, 
_ they gathered them together in a quiet place and 





THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 85 


put them through their paces. The young men, 
{ guileness so far as enmity was concerned, were 
like a group of actors preparing and conning their 
lines before stepping on the stage. They were told 
exactly what they should say. They were asked to 
repeat it again and again until they were word- 
perfect. They were even instructed how to deport 
themselves, and how to put a little more guileless 
interest into their eyes! 

It is amusing for us today to get this peep behind 
the scenes. It suggests to me the Green Room, 
where the actor mutters over his lines, while here 
and there he gives his borrowed plumes a pull and 
a pat, and dabs a little more rouge and powder on 
his face. 

All this before he faces the limelight. In this 
case, the search-light of Christ’s calm eyes! 

Out you go then, young lads, and act your play. 
You are now word-perfect and you know how to 
hold yourselves, as guileless enquirers. Jesus will 
see that you are only young men keen on problems, 
seeking light amid youth’s puzzles and worries, 

We of course shall keep discreetly in the 
shadow! Surely these artlessly artful college men 
will throw dust in this Galilean’s eyes. After all, 
He is only a rough untutored prophet from the 
country! 


IV 
They are now on the stage. 


86 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 


Word-perfect and suitably rouged—no longer 
simple, however, for they have become confed- 
erates and plotters, even if it be only a young man’s 
crude idea of a joke—word-perfect and accoutred, 
they come before Jesus. 

I can imagine the shadowed eyes with which He 
looked at them as they went through their pitiful 
part. He was not hearing their words so much as 
hearing their thoughts. I have no doubt they per- 
formed their duty well and flattered themselves 
that they had deceived this simple Galilean. And 
when they had finished, they waited. 

For what? 

We read in one simple sentence,—a striking in- 
stance of the Bible’s glorious economy in words— 
“Jesus perceived their wickedness.” 

It is a modern as well as an ancient game to try 
to throw dust in Christ’s eyes. 


Let us watch them, as they play their part. 

Before they stated their dilemma, they led up to 
it by mouthing that fine tribute which the grey- 
haired and hard-eyed plotters had put into their 
hearts. 

Notice this tribute for a moment. 

As they spoke it, in laboured insincerity, it is 
only honied speech, oily words, vulgar flattery. 
Yet I do not know a finer unconscious tribute to ° 
this Jesus of ours. It may be that enemies often 
see more clearly than friends. 


| 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 87 


“We know that thou art true’”’—sincere, with 
no double meanings or divided loyalties, one who 
rings true like a bell. This is a tribute to 
character. ; 

“And that thou teachest the way of God in 
truth,’—honestly and fearlessly, with open face 
and clean heart. This is a tribute to His message. 
“The way of God,” mark you. That is something 
they never confessed before. 

“ Neither carest thou for any man, for thou re- 
gardest not the person of man,’—neither courting 
human favour nor dressing your message to suit 
your audience. This is a tribute to His methods, 
which contrasted so strongly with the leaders of 
His day. 

Well done, young men! Well done, you old 
grey-haired plotters! We take this gladly as the 
testimony of the enemy. 

They lied when they spoke the truth. They 
spoke the truth when they lied. 


V 


Then came the dilemma. 

In their case, I have called it a conundrum: for 
though it was a real and bitter dilemma to many 
earnest Jewish hearts, it was only a conundrum to 
them. They were waiting for Christ’s reply, not 
to receive and welcome light, but to scribble His 
answer down on one of their student note-books 
and report it by their seniors to Pilate. 


88 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 


This is the dilemma. 

Is it lawful for us as good Jews, as God’s people, 
owing allegiance to Him alone, is tt lawful for us to 
give tribute to Caesar, or not? 

The question is as clever as the methods in 
which it was prepared. It hoisted Jesus on to the 
horns of a dilemma. 

If, to give a true solution, one must answer every 
question by “ Yes” or “ No,” then Jesus was in a 
cleft stick. He could not avoid the issue by an 
evasion, and no answer at all would have been 
worse than either “yes” or “no.’ If He had 
refused to answer, it would have been a proof of 
fear, and His silence would have condemned Him 
as a prophet and teacher with His audience. Si- 
lence or evasion would have been fatal. 

But if He answered “yes” or “no,” He was 
equally lost. 

If He said “ We are a conquered people and are 
rightly due to give tribute to Caesar,” He would 
have outraged all the holy passionate nationalistic 
dreams of the nation. Not a decent Jew would 
have listened to Him for another moment. Even 
among His own disciples there were keen Zealots, 
who hated Rome worse than the Southern Irish 
hated Cromwell, and with as much reason. 

If He said, “ We Jews may be forced at the 
point of the bayonet to pay tribute to Caesar, but 
we deny that it is lawful,” there would have been 
a troop of soldiers at His humble lodging within 


a 


a ener] 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 89 


an hour, and Pilate would have made short work 
of this political upstart. Rome might tolerate any 
diversity of religious opinion: but she was hard as 
steel in political questions. 


Tell us, therefore, us young men, “Is it lawful 
to give tribute to Caesar or not?” 

Jesus looked at them. | 
Have you ever wondered what the eyes of Jesus 
were like? We find a Greek word used in this 
connection in the New Testament which suggests) _. 

that Jesus “looked into” or “looked through” ° 
people. Whatever that implies, it implies at least 
that there was a quality of sheer intensity in His 
gaze, a steady penetrating look, such a look, for 
instance, as that which broke through Peter’s 
bluster until it touched the healing fount of tears. 

Christ looked through these young men and saw 
the intention of their soul. “Why tempt ye me, 
ye hypocrites?”’ What a thrust for His com- 
placent questioners who had fondly hoped to throw 
dust in His eyes! 

In reply, Jesus gave what I might reverently 
describe as the cleverest and the most perfect © 
answer that I know of in all literature. “‘ Shew me 
the tribute money.” And they brought Him a 
penny. “Whose is this image and superscrip- 
tion?” They say unto Him, “ Caesar’s.” Jesus 
said, “ Render unto Caesar the things that are 

Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” 


90 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 


I told this story once to an American who did 
not know much about his New Testament. When 
I had finished, he turned to me and said, “ Well, 
now, can you beat it?” 

That is my own opinion. “Can you beat it?” 


VI 


What did Jesus do in this answer? 

Incidentally, I may say that He has taught me 
the utter folly of trying to treat Him as if He 
were a fool. 

Weare all guilty of this, even in our holy things, 
perhaps most of all in our holy things. We bring 
our little insincerities, our social disguises, our 
painted faces, and our parrot words into His pres- 
ence. We think that we deceive Him as we deceive 
others, and often ourselves. But whatever Christ 
is, He is clear-eyed. He simply looks at us with 
the eyes of God. Perhaps these eyes pity, but at 
least they see! 

We are a people who love masks, and we all wear 
them. There is not a face before me now that is 
not subtly masked. We deceive men, for “ there is 
no art to read the mind’s construction in the face.” 
In time we may even deceive ourselves. 

God is not mocked! 


Further, Jesus defined His own attitude unmis- 


takably to a great modern question, from two 


angles,—negatively and positively. 


, * 
* 





eee ee ee eee eee, 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 91 


1. Negatively, this is a plain announcement that 
He refused to be drawn into the vortex of political 
debate, or to side with any party. 

Why did He do this? 

Some people think that He should have given 
wise political guidance to His own needy age. If 
He had any light to give, why should He withhold 
it? Men surely need gracious leadership in the 
material things of life, as well as in the spiritual. 

He refused to do this for one or two serious 
reasons. 

(a) However important and urgent they may 
seem to us, political questions are purely temporary. © 
They pass in a few years into the limbo of mere 
dialectics, and are soon only of such historical in- 
terest asa mummy is. This question of tribute to 
Caesar, for instance, is dead. The claim of the 
American States to secede,—a great matter in its 
own day—is dead. Roman Catholic emancipation 
—how bitter that question was—is dead. Woman’s 
suffrage—we remember its turmoil—is dead. In 
fact, all the questions we call great, great often 
because we are so near to them, die in their own 
age and certainly die with their settlement. They 
are as temporary as our own darkened passions. 

But Christ’s message is timeless, not for one 
day but for all days. If He had pronounced on 
any big question that agitated His own day, 


however timely His word would have been, He ~~ 


would have ceased to be timeless. That part of 


92 THE DILEMMA} OF (POLITICS 


His message would have died with the occasion that 
prompted it. 

(b) All parties, just because they are parties, 
cling only to aspects of truth. The whole truth so 
often lies not in any one of the parties but in all. 
Just because I am outside of it, I have been im- 
mensely puzzled, when in America, to understand 
the difference, other than historical, between a 
Democrat and a Republican. These distinctions 
are real to those who live amid their issues, but 
unreal to those who are outside them. I dare say, 
an American citizen might be as puzzled to under- 
stand the difference between a “ cautious Liberal ” 
and a “ progressive Unionist ”’! 

Parties everywhere represent only aspects of 
truth. But Jesus said, “I am the Truth.’ He 
claimed to give something that is bigger than any 
party, that may be a light and an inspiration to 
purify all parties. If He had given political guid- 
ance, He would have been just as living or as dead 
as the issues on which He pronounced! 


2. On the positive side, His answer suggests 
that He gave big living principles, not little passing 
policies, eternal principles of right and justice in 
which ephemeral policies may be framed. 

He was concerned with the saving doctrines of 
good life and conduct, by which all policies may be 
measured, and in which all policies may be inspired. 
He gave regulative views of God, of man, of 





Dn 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 95 


worth, of truth, of love, of justice, to which all 
our political schemes should be brought as to a 
touchstone. 

That is what He did here. 

In no sense did He evade the question. He 
answered it perhaps in the fullest measure in which 
the burning question of state and religion has ever 
been answered. 

On the one hand, He commanded all men, 
frankly and fully, to “ Render unto Caesar the 
things that are Caesar’s.”” What does that mean? 
Surely it means nothing less than that we should 
give our full dues to the powers that be, fulfilling 
our duties to the State, to society, and to our 
fellow-citizens. We are members of the State, and 
we handle “ Caesar’s money.” That implies that we 
accept the privileges of state citizenship, state rights, 
state protection, state comfort, state amenities. 

Now if we accept great privileges, we should be 
as ready to accept great responsibilities. It is a 
mean thing to take all that the state offers, and 
refuse what the state needs. It is the meanest thing 


in the world, for instance, to stand amid all the |.~ wi 


great privileges of a stable and civilised nation, and 
yet cheat in our income tax! 

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. 
The very sweep and comprehensiveness of this 
charge cover all duties and all times. 


“ And to God, the things that are God's.” 


94 THE DILEMMAVOF POLITICS 


That is added as if its application regulated the 
message of the first sentence. 

It does. 

For our view of the State will ultimately depend 
on our view of God. If God’s true service be put 
first, our service of the State will never suffer. The 
best citizens of the Fatherland are those who love 
the Father’s land. 

For in God our conscience is sharpened, our 
sense of duty is deepened, and our regard for others 
becomes a love. If first of all and most of all we 
seek to give God what is God’s due,—our worship 
and reverence and obedience,—we shall never 
grudge what is due to our fellow-men or to the 
State in which we live. i 

You will notice that once more Jesus gives no 
limiting details, but only a great principle to be 
interpreted by our growing conscience. By lifting 
all policies into the region of principle, He made 
His message to His own age as much a message 
to ours, a message that can never be exhausted until 
we reach “ perfection’s sacred heights.” 


Thus He settled His dilemma. 

“Render unto Caesar the things that are 
Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” 

As my American friend remarked, “Can you 
beat it?” 


VI 
THE DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


@IESUS stepped into a full social system, 
Ni; —what we might call a “ going con- 
cern ’’—which was exactly as good or 
as bad as the conscience of the age 
could devise or tolerate. Each generation, like 
each nation, has the government it deserves. Men 
make their own systems, and they must be judged 
by them. 

Jesus had to adjust Himself to this established 
order as we adjust ourselves to ours. Each day of 
His life and each act of His day would necessarily 
bring Him into definite relation with the political 
_ and municipal order of things. Like all His 
fellow-countrymen, He lived under this order, and 
must have been subtly influenced by it in nameless 
ways. The whole system, good or bad, must have 
come under His daily notice and daily criticism, 
for praise or blame. We have to remember that 
He was as much a citizen, with a citizen’s duties 
and privileges, as any other individual. 

Around Him, there were political institutions of 
ancient standing: customs of commerce and con- 
duct that were deeply rooted: systems of law and 
justice that had been slowly built up through the 


95 





96 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


_ generations. This recognised social order sur- 
rounded Him in all the departments of His life, as 
the air He breathed. He found it there, acknowl- 
edged and enforced, as we find it around us when 
we step out into work and manhood. 

What relation would Jesus assume towards this 
established social system? How would He adjust 
Himself to its mingled good and evil? Would He 
venture on criticism, or if need be, take a public 
stand against open and flagrant injustice? 


We have seen already what attitude He assumed 
to political programmes. That attitude was 
summed up in the memorable sentence, ‘“‘ Render 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to 
God the things that are God’s.” 

I turn now and ask you to observe the very defi- 
nite attitude He assumed to the intricate system 
of municipal and national law in His own land 
and day. . 

The dilemma was introduced to Him in a singu- 
lar fashion. 


I 


He had been speaking to His disciples concern- 
ing the duties and dangers lying ahead of them in — 
the difficult days to come. At the close of His talk, 
He warned them that they might reasonably expect 
political trouble. Their enemies might use the full — 
power of the State to crush them, and might hale: 


\ 


DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 97 


them before magistrates and powers to stop their 
mouths in prison or in death. If so, they should 
carry themselves with a high heart, for God 
through His Holy Spirit would keep them strong. 

That casual word “ magistrate’ struck the ear 
of one man in the audience, and chimed in with his 
own preoccupied and unharmonious thoughts. He 
was that dreadful type of person, a man with a 
grievance. Most of us have had reason to fear 
this species of monomaniac, for we know that even 
the most irrelevant and casual reference will lead 
him to his pet obsession, as sour jam attracts a 
stray wasp! ° 

The word “ magistrate ” set this man off royally 
on his hobby-horse! 

Evidently, there were two brothers of them who 
had fallen out pitifully about property, a subject 
that has ruined more homes than warfare itself. 
’ The quarrel had evidently gone to extremes. Why 
is it that between kinsfolk it generally goes to ex- 
tremes? I have seen brethren more bitterly 
estranged, on some question of property or money, 
than if they had been ancient hereditary enemies. 

(1f you will forgive a digression, I should like 
to make use of these brackets to insert one! 

May I assure parents and guardians from my own 
ministerial experience, that the one thing they 
should be sure of, for their children’s sake, is that 
their affairs are put in strictly legal order? I have 
heard fond people remark, “ My children are much 


98 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


too affectionate ever to quarrel in after days about 
such things as property.” If you wish to save 
them from quarreling, be wise enough now to put 
the temptation beyond their reach! In later days, 
other interests and other motives arise, with the 
new bonds we form; and I have seen families, once 
loving, rent and ruined by some quarrel about half 
an acre of ground.) 

Forgive my digression :—but it springs from the 
sad facts of this case. 


II 


These two brothers had fallen out about an in- 
heritance. From the facts before us, it is very 
likely that their trusting father—to use a modern 
phrase—had died “ without a will.” He had be- 
lieved, as others do, in his sons’ love and mutual 
honour. But when hard cash and broad acres 
came into the case, greed crept in to keep them 
company. 

We do not know all the facts: but we know the 
one big fact,—greed, suspicion, hatred. 


since this man appealed to Jesus, an unofficial 
person, we may justly infer that he had already 
tried all available official means without success. 

Probably, the case had been disposed of in court: 
and the decision had gone against him. Or he may 
have been defeated, as so many in those “ good old 
days” were defeated, by the art of oiling the 








ee ee ee ee ee eee eee ..,  ———————————————————_—_— ee 
DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 99 


judge’s palm. (Thank God that such twisted 
corruption is no longer possible!) Or finally, the 
issue may have been a debate between law and 
equity. The law may have pointed one way: and 
equity, as it sometimes does, may have pointed 
another. 

But at least, since the man came to Jesus, a 
purely unofficial person but one of startling mag- 
netic influence, we may assume that he had already 
tried every other available means without success. 
He was driven to bring his case to this wonderful 
teacher as a last resource, in the hope that He might 
use the strange influence He exercised over people, 
to straighten things out. 


Til 


“ Master, speak to my brother that he divide the 
inheritance with me.” 

What was he asking Jesus to do? 

His question invited our Lord, quite pointedly, 
not only to use His spiritual influence to settle a 
question of money, but also to set Himself over 
against the law of the land, to re-try a case that 
had been already settled in the approved courts of 
justice, and so, directly or indirectly, to make some 
pronouncement on the system of legal justice 
under which He lived. 

All this lies behind the man’s suggestion. It is 
this that makes it essentially impudent. 

Some might feel inclined to argue that Jesus 


100 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


should have heard this man’s case, lest there might 
have been a bitter injustice lurking behind it. Pre- 
suming that the man was in trouble, could Jesus 
do less? That would have been in gracious keeping 
with His gentle and loving heart. 

But Jesus was not only gentle. He was also fair. 
To be fair, in a thorny case like this, He would also 
have had to hear the other man’s side! If He had 
done that, His act would have amounted to nothing 
less than this—a retrial by Him of a case already 
settled in a court of law. 

The law may have been biassed, one-sided and 
unequal. It may have been wrongly administered 
and badly interpreted. It may have been weighted 
like loaded dice. But all that is totally beside the 
bigger question involved in the man’s request,— 
that Jesus should give some pronouncement on a 
case legally settled. 

“ Master,” said the man, “ speak to my brother 
that he divide the inheritance with me.” 


IV 


Christ’s answer, in contrast with His usual man- 
ner, is noticeably stern. ‘‘ Man,” He said—there 
is a note of aloofness and reproof in that word— 
“Man, who made me a judge or an arbiter 
over your” 


There is more than a mere refusal in these words. 
In the first place, there is a distinct and serious 


DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 101 


condemnation of the type of man who put the 
question and the type of question he put. 

If you think of it, the absurd irrelevance of this 
stranger’s request showed that he had not been 
listening with any spiritual interest to the deep 
things of which Jesus had been speaking. He had 
apparently heard Christ’s weighty and solemn 
words,—for he responded to one of them like a 
parrot,—and then like some silly story-teller, he 
remarked “ By-the-way, speaking about magis- 
thatesacin rg eet 

Jesus has really nothing to say to that type of 
spiritual irrelevance. 


But further and deeper, our Lord’s answer re- 
veals an implied respect for the system of justice 
_and the recognised officials of His own day. 

“ Who made me a judge?” He remarked. The 
only and obvious implication is——a judge is the 
one fitting person to whom you have any right to 
apply! In the social system in which you live and 
which you permit, the judge has his recognised 
place and duty; and if law is to stand for anything 
at all, it is to a court of justice you must have 
recourse. “‘ Had I been a judge properly appointed, 
that might have been different. But I am not a 
judge. Bring your case, therefore, to its proper 
atena.”’ 

That, I think, is the obvious inference from our 
Lord’s answer. 


nn | 
102 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


Now, I take this as Christ’s recognition of the 
system of law under which He and we must live. 

In His own case, He might well do honour to 
the majesty and fairness of the law of the Roman 
Empire. If it may be said that the Greeks gave 
the world the dream of art and beauty, and the 
Hebrews the dream of God and true religion, it 
may as fairly be said that the Romans gave the 
world a vision of just and impartial law. 

But whether He criticised it or no, Christ gave 
the accepted system under which He lived due and 
fitting recognition. In effect, His answer amounted 
to this—if you have a case for justice, bring it to 
the appointed seat of justice. 


V 


I think we should not pass this over lightly, as 
if there were no temptation or dilemma here for 
Jesus. 

In the first place, He knew, as no other man 
ever did, how unequal and even unjust the best 
human laws may be. Indeed He actually warned 
His own disciples against going to law, and asked 
them to settle their disputes in the higher court 
of love and sacrifice. Even in the matter of 
the “sacred law,” He had shown how deadly 
all legal enactments may be, and how barren 
strict observance may be. And in place of legal 
exactness He had put the fulfilling spirit of love — 
and service. 


ee ra 
DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 103 


Further, knowing human nature as He did, He 
was aware how open the men of His day were to 
bribery and corruption. Subtle influences could 
often bias judgment, and the scales could be 
judiciously and judicially weighted. He knew that 
a rich man might often buy justice, while a poor 
man could only sell it. 

He knew also that even with good intention, a 
law might be questionably administered. Judges, 
like doctors, could disagree, and could so easily 
differ on a point of interpretation. 

And finally, none knew better that the most 
comprehensive law can never include all the equi- 
ties. Sometimes in the framing and administration 
of law, equity escapes, like the perfume from 
a rose. 


Why, then, did He not take this unique oppor- 
tunity to let the world see that there might be 
principles higher than law, and that it might be 
expedient sometimes to set law aside? Surely He 
could have shown that He was a greater than 
Solomon! He could have judged this case in such 
a striking fashion that He might have given suc- 
ceeding generations an uplifting vision. 


VI 
There are some people who believe that Jesus 
refused to deal with this man’s request because He 
knew that the man was in the wrong. Others 


104 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


allege that He treated him‘so cursorily because the 
fellow was greedy and avaricious. 

These are merely assumptions and are as need- 
less as they are unjustified. Even if they were 
true, they would give us no adequate explanation 
of Christ’s answer. . . . I think we should 
notice that as a matter of fact, Jesus did not en- 
guire into the case at all. Deliberately, I believe. 
He merely cut the man short with this abrupt re- 
proof, not because he was greedy or because he 
was in the wrong, but for another and, I think, 
better reason. Our Lord refused to take any 
action, because He regarded the matter as one with 
which He had nothing to do! “ Who made me a 
judge or a divider over you?” 


I take His answer as a recognition of all properly 
constituted authority. 

In its effect, His reply amounts to this—‘“‘ We 
have a system of law in our land. We people, as 
citizens, are ultimately responsible for our own 
laws. We make them. Our laws represent the 
formulated conscience of our people, so far as that 
can be ascertained. If our social conscience is bad, 
our laws are bad: and we are judged not only by 
the laws we decree but by the laws we allow. In 
fact, every nation has only the government it de- 
serves. Submit your case therefore to your consti- 
tuted authorities.” 

I deny that this is an evasion of an awkward 


DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 105 


case. Jestis was too brave ever to evade any issue 
just because it was awkward! 

On the contrary, I regard this as a distinct state- 
ment of a principle. The principle is this :—since 
we make our own laws and expect others to abide 
by them, we must be ready ourselves to do the 
same. ‘That is the only means by which law can 
be either sacred or honoured. If the honour of 
making law is ours, the onus of obeying it is 
also ours. 


Vil 


I can think of three reasons why Jesus answered 
His enquirer in this abrupt fashion. 

1. To put it in our homely phrase, this was not 
His job. 

He came to declare the Father’s will and to give 
men the mind of God in such a way that they would 
have big controlling principles of life and conduct 
to guide them in all details. To have these ruling 
principles is better and bigger than to have a thou- : 
sand petty narrow commands. He gave us God’s 
love, God’s truth, God’s justice. From these, amid 
our changing circumstances, we may easily devise 
the rules that are suitable for our own age and 
fitness. 

Perhaps the fact that we must discover our laws 
for ourselves is part of our spiritual education and 
the proof of our spiritual manhood. Therefore 
He gave us no “ cut-and-dried” laws: but He so ¢ 


Le A A nnn | 
106 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


instructed the conscience that we can frame wise 
laws for ourselves. In every case, it is the con- 
science and the heart and the soul that Christ is 
after. If only He can get our conscience stirred 
and enlightened, He will have given us a finer gift 
than if He had provided us with the most perfect 
code of specified commands and observances. 

This agrees with His own judgment of the mi- 
nute law of Moses. I do not say that He swept the 
details aside. But if He did not come to destroy it, 
He came to fulfil it. And His method of fulfilment 
was to gather it up into a bigger truth, the love of 
God and man, that love which alone fulfils the law. 
Christ was concerned with principles, under which 
details find their due place and inspiration. 


Indeed, that a people should make their own 
laws is their only hope of national salvation! 
We train young people to implicit obedience in 
school and in the home, whether they under- 
stand why they should obey or no. But we do 
that, not to keep them forever in leading strings, 
but to give them the principles by which they may 
afterwards rule their own lives in discipline and 
happiness. 

That is what Christ wanted. 

He stated the broad principles of God’s justice, 
righteousness, and love. From these, He trusts us 
to make and administer our own laws, as occasion 
may arise. 


DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 107 


2. Jesus answered the man in this fashion be- 
cause, like most of us, he was laying the main 
emphasis on the wrong things. 

As soon as His enquirer went away, our Lord 
turned to the people and said, “Take heed and 
beware of covetousness.” ‘Take heed, that is, of 
any view of life that estimates it by what we have 
instead of what we are,—the things we can grasp 
instead of the things we can do and be. 

It may be hard for us to understand, but the 
fact remains, none the less, that Jesus was not 
really interested in “things” at all. He Himself 
had no things! No home, no land, no possession, 
no money. Indeed, when He wanted that penny 
to answer the conundrum about Caesar’s tribute, 
He had to borrow it from a bystander. 

I do not know whether Christ’s own programme 
is possible for us in our complex civilisation. We 
have to live: and half our life, by a strange irony, 
consists in making or earning things. But from 
Christ’s point of view, we certainly put too much 
stress on material concerns. It is a serious spiritual 
danger. However important they may be, these 
things dwarf everything else, until material com- 
fort becomes even the test of modern civilisation. 
The most civilised nation is the nation that has 
most material plenty! I wonder what Jesus would 
say to that, 

He took this definite line for Himself that we 
might learn true values, and so might sit less tightly 


108 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


to the things of sense. We speak with reverence 
of the sacredness of property. He spoke only of 
the sacredness of souls. 


3. He advised this man to abide by the law of 
his land, because He invariably did so Himself. 
He paid His own tribute, when demanded. At 
the end, He even respected the law by which He 
was condemned. I do not know anyone who lived 
a better citizen’s life than Jesus. 

Christ might easily have claimed for Himself 
that He was above our poor and inadequate sys- 
tem. Why should He, with His august views, be 
bound by our pitiful little ideas of what is right 
and wrong? He must have seen how imperfect 
our legal provisions were. Yet He submitted Him- 
self fully to the social exactions of His day and its 
governing powers. 

That does not countenance quiescence or supine 
assent. If we make laws, we can unmake them. 
But it does suggest the needed spirit of obedience 
and reverence. If the whole social system is in 
our own hands and of our own making, it is our 
duty to plan the best: but when we have planned 
the best, it is equally our duty to bind ourselves by 
it. The true way to rectify wrongs is not to dis- 
obey law but to alter it. Among Christian people, 
revolution, in the old or new sense of the term, 
has no place whatever. The only true revolution 
lies in remodelling our law. 


DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 109 


Regarding this “reign of law,” some people 
think that the Church, Christ’s Church should be 
above the law, or at least should be outside the 
ordinary statutes that govern other institutions. In 
former days, this view was most perfectly crystal- 
lised in the claim of the Medieval Church that a 
priest should only be tried by priests: and that a 
church court should have the power to frame its 
own legal decisions. I suppose this is an aspect 
of the ancient privilege that a peer should only be 
tried by his fellow-peers! 

How such a claim on behalf of the Church 
arose, it is hard to say,—except from ecclesiastical 
arrogance. For it rests on a desolating view of 
mankind quite opposed to our Lord’s. In His eyes, 
the lowest and humblest man is the peer of any 
peer! For with Him, there is no difference be- 
tween men because of status, or position, or ordi- 
nation, or rank, or money. There is neither Jew 
nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. We 
are all one in Christ Jesus. 

That the Church or any individual Christian 
should demand to be outside the sweep of the law, 
when Christ made no such claim for Himself, is 
ridiculous. It is absurd to think that any group 
of people, living in and by the law, should yet claim 
to be beyond the law, a self-governing Kingdom 
within a Kingdom. 

This would reduce the whole idea of social 
authority to an absurdity. But most of all, it 


110 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 


would contradict Christ’s personal practice. He 
Himself submitted to the constituted powers of 
His day, and He sent others,—this man especially 
—to the legal system under which they lived for 
justice and redress. 

This does not mean that law is sacrosanct. If 
law is made, it can be unmade. In this lies our 
remedy and our challenge. Let us see that our 
laws are in accordance with the declared mind of 
God and the love of Jesus. Let us work for finer 
and juster statutes. Let us point out all inade- 
quacies and expose deficiencies. But what we ask 
others to respect, let us respect for ourselves. 

[t is our Christian duty to labour ceaselessly to 
make our social system perfect. But we should 
realise equally that no true character, private or 
national, can be built up or sustained unless in the 
honouring of the laws which we make or permit. 

“ Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the - 
inheritance with me.” 

Jesus said, ‘ Man, who made me a judge? ” 

Go to the constituted authorities. 


VII 
THE DILEMMA OF THE CROSS-ROADS 


= a WO main roads swept out of Jericho,— 
: (i 2)/] one north, the other south. 
lieN ‘Ga At the moment, Jesus was standing 
eS) at the outskirts of the town. From St. 
Mark’s simple record, we gather that some big 
emotion seemed to grip and possess Him, thoughts 
that stirred Him like heaving lava. He looked this 
way: and He looked that. His soul was plainly 
in a great torment. 

Which of these two ways would He take? 

They were roads of diverse fate for Him and 
the world. In a true sense, the history of civilisa- 
tion depended on which of these paths He chose to 
walk. On such things do our destinies hang. 





One road, sloping gently to the north, recalled 
to Jesus many gracious memories of His distant 
home in Galilee—friendship and tested love—a sure 


prospect of continuing happiness,—a ripe old age 


in growing honour and respect. 

Should He choose to take it, this north road 
would bring Him again to the good hearts that 
loved Him, where He could continue His ministry 
with deepening appreciation. ‘There, among His 

11] 


112 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


own loyal folk, with increasing honour, He might 
live as God’s great prophet until the rich years 
took their toll of Him, silvered with age and 
service. Might He not build a great Kingdom in 
the years to be? 

The other road struck south, up the stony ways 
to Jerusalem. But by this time, that city, the 
magnet of all pilgrim hearts, was a thing of omen 
for Jesus. He understood very plainly that this 
city meant danger and death. There,—whisper- 
ing behind walls and conferring at the corners 
of the streets—hatred and bigotry were clubbing 
together. 

At this very moment, enemies were gathered in 
an evil league. Many kinds of people who hated 
each other deeply seemed to hate Him more, and 
were united to strike down goodness. One might 
overhear their whispered queries, “ Will He come? 
Will He risk coming? And if He comes, can we 
lay hands on Him, and end His mischievous 
work? ” 

I have little doubt that as He glanced down that — 
south road, Jesus understood very plainly what its 
prospect held for Him. As His own words show, — 
He could discern that the end of the road was 
blocked by a cross. 

The Son of Man must die. 


Thus the road to the north spelt one thing— { 
life: the road to the south spelt its opposite—death. — 


DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 113 


These were the alternatives hidden behind a simple 
choice of two roads. Which would He take? 

As we know today, not only His own fate but 
ours depended on His choice. From the. human 
angle, this was literally His last opportunity of 
decision. The die must be cast\here,—this way or 
that. If He went north, He chose home, love and 
life: and avoided a cross. If He went south, He 
placed Himself fully, without escape, in the hands 
of evil men. 

If He went north, He went as Jesus. 

If He went south, He went as Christ. 


I protest against the common idea that Jesus 
came to His big decisions with a superb ease and 
serenity of soul quite alien to us. 

Some people imagine that they do Him honour 
by denying that He had to argue and wrestle with 
temptation in our quivering fashion. ‘They think 
it belittles Him to attribute any hesitation or in- 
decision to His mind. But in real truth, these 
people empty His acts of moral value: for in rob- 
bing Him of temptation, they rob Him of victory. 

Needless to say, death was no easier for Jesus 
than it is for us. Some good people, in the same 
foolish anxiety to do Him honour, speak of the 
cross as if it caused Him no real concern, as if He 
took it in His stride as a part of the day’s work, 
indeed, as if He walked up to it at the end with a 
smile on His lips! 


114 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


I respect their intention. ‘They wish, no doubt, 
to show the magnificence of His obedience. But 
obedience has no value, if one has never been 
tempted to disobey. 

If we wish to have any comprehension of this 
agony outside Jericho, the fact for us to note is 
that Jesus,—thirty-three years old—was no more 
in love with death than any other healthy man of 
similar age. Rather, because of His untainted en- 
joyment, He valued life and the gifts that grace it 
more than any of us can ever understand. To me 
it seems not only absurd but dishonouring to say 
that He was untouched by any of my shrinking 
agony or my physical aversion from suffering and 
death. That ends only in cheapening His cross 
and questioning His moral courage. 


At this moment, outside Jericho, we see Him 
battling with His own oppressive temptations and 
settling the last issues in His soul. 

On the one hand, could anyone blame Him if He 
quietly steered northwards to Galilee? Like other 
wise men, He might argue that He could do more 
good alive than dead. He might establish His 
Kingdom on solid foundations, and He might 
give, not three years but thirty years, to the train- 
ing of His raw disciples. That in itself would be 
a priceless gain for the Kingdom. . . . In 
any case, was it not better to be a live dog than a 
dead lion? 


a rn enn | 
DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 115 


On the other hand, why need He thrust His neck 
into the noose? Was there any compulsion, real 
compulsion, that the Son of Man must die? Was 
there not an equally gracious alternative,—that He 
might live, and win the world by living? 


Outside Jericho, then,—on this road—while the 
choice is still His,—we see the Master debating the 
question in its final form, the form that will com- 
mit Him for ever. I claim that this scene is the 
true beginning—I might almost say, the true 
climax,—of His agony and passion. I believe that 
He never suffered as intensely again as He suffered 
here. For everything that followed this scene in 
time, followed it in effect. It is the supreme mo- 
ment of His ministry: it is the water-shed of 
His life. 

I place the real Gethsemane here, not in the 
garden! | 


T 


The scene itself, though sketched in one short 
verse, is loaded with its own agony. I do not know 
if the disciples at the moment understood what they 
saw, but at least the incident left an indelible, if 
_ puzzling, memory in their hearts. 

_ It all happened so unexpectedly and oddly. Sud- 
denly, as Jesus and the disciples were outside 
Jericho, something seemed to master and shake 
Him. . . . He stepped clear ahead of the crowd. 


116 | DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


They were amazed. . . . They were 
afraid. 

Here is Mark’s record told in such simple 
words, “ And they were in the way going up to 
Jerusalem: and Jesus went before them: and they 
were amazed: and as they followed, they were 
afraid. And He took again the twelve, and 
began to tell them what things should happen 
unto Him.” 

There is something unexplained here. 

That Christ striding ahead! Why should that 
make them amazed and afraid? It is the only 
record we have of any incident or occasion when 
these disciples, who loved Him, were filled with 
nameless dread. They were struck dumb: they 
were astonished: they fell back in fear! 

What accounts for it? 

It must have been something in Jesus,—some 
sign of agony, some mark of uncontrollable emo- 
tion, some drawn look,—that startled these loving 
hearts. I have no doubt that His face became 
fixed and drawn. I have no doubt that He evi- 
denced emotion. . . . Perhaps as they looked, 
they saw His fingers clenched into His flesh, till 
the knuckle-bones showed white with the tension. 


Perhaps, in the sudden silence and amazement, they — 


heard a groan burst from His lips. 
Who can know? 


At least, some amazing thing happened. As 


Jesus strode out in front, these disciples, for the 


> ose 


— 


DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS iA ig 


only time in their lives, were stricken with sudden 
panic. Fear! Imagine it. Fear! Of Jesus? At 
least some nameless dread, as they watched and 
followed. 

Il 

I am not sure whether the disciples fully under- 
stood what happened, any more than we do now. 
I am not sure even whether they linked cause and 
effect together, or understood the reason of their 
Master’s emotion. That at least is something 
which we can do for ourselves. For with the 
narrative before us, we can see why our Lord 
suffered. 

The Master Himself supplied the explanation of 
His own emotion, 

After a moment or two, having relaxed from 
His overmastering feelings, He turned back to 
His astonished disciples, and said quietly, “ Be- 
hold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of 
Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests.” 

Observe the quietness. But that quietnes: 
had been bought at a great price, His dedication 
of Himself. 

With these words in our ears—His own ex- 
planation—it is obvious what contest of thought 
had stirred this passion in Jesus. Here, on 
this bit of white road, outside Jericho, He had 
finally decided to go to Jerusalem, knowing what 
it meant. 


118 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


Here we have His great and final commitment 
of Himself. He saw the cross, and read it as the 
mind of God. He vowed Himself now to God, 
for us. 

This, no less, is what He debated and settled 
here, once and for all. 


Til 


That is why I say that this is the worst moment 
in our Lord’s passion and agony. He never 
suffered again as He suffered now. 

Some of you might question this statement: and 
if asked to give your view of Christ’s darkest 
moment, you might answer otherwise. 

1. Some might point to the real Garden of Geth- 
semane, that night of unguessed agony, when 
“His sweat was as it were great drops of blood 
falling down to the ground.” Could there be a 
darker moment than that experience of loneli- 
ness and desolation? Surely that was anguish 
beyond any? 

2. Others might picture Him, a King and the 
Son of God, in the ribald company of Pilate’s 
palace. They mocked Him: they slapped Him: 
they spit upon Him: they dressed Him out in 
loathsome mockery. All that He believed about 
Himself in His own soul was then grossly ridi- 
culed. It was an experience of complete degra- — 
dation. With the power of God in His heart, that 
must have been an hour of deep despair! 





DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS ae, 


3. Others again might justly point to the cross 
itself with all its grisly accessories. Could any- 
thing surpass that anguished cry, when He thought 
Himself forgotten of God and man, “ My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me?” ‘To wonder 
if even God has shut His eyes—does that not touch 
the depths? 


IV 
I do not lessen the agony of these scenes. Far 
be it from me! Yet I say that our Lord’s greatest 


moment of anguish was on this road from Jericho, \_-~ 


when His emotion so over-mastered His superb 

control that His strange conduct paralysed His 

trusting disciples with fear, the only recorded 

occasion when Christ so affected His followers. 
Why do I say so? 


When you think of it, a man’s greatest agony \ 


always lies in his deciding. Just to know what to 
do, amid the balancing of “pros” and “cons,” in 
the wrangle of possibilities, with the fear of false 
decision, with the haunting horror of a fatal fool- 


ish step, just to make your mind up finally to face . 


some dreadful thing, that is always a _ soul’s 
greatest agony. | 
Any of us who has been faced with some mo- 


mentous decision knows the agony of this moment. 


When one’s whole life hangs on a single act, the 
decision 1s compressed passion. There may be 
people who jest about their decisions, or who can 


ew 
> 


120 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


shut their eyes and leap: but these are not people 
who look at life seriously. Where there is a soul 
like Jesus, faced with issues like Jesus, the decision 
is an agony of perplexity. 

On the other hand, once the mind is bent and 
the die is finally cast, a man may quietly face any- 
thing. Our greatest pain lies in clenching our 
hands and setting our face towards Jerusalem. If 
we settle that, our decision, once it is made, brings 
a peculiar peace and power of its own,—a gracious 
compensation. Having once faced Jerusalem, one 
may face Jerusalem’s cross. 


We see Jesus here in the actual moment of His 
life’s decision. If He can settle this, the rest fol- 
lows as a foreseen part of it. Without any doubt, 
as we gather from His own words, He knew 
exactly what this journey to Jerusalem portended. 
He knew that He was putting Himself into the 
remorseless hands of His enemies. If He once set 
His face towards Jerusalem, He took what fol- 
lowed as part of His decision, the outcome of 
His act. 

If He waited behind and took the north road to 


Galilee—and who could reproach Him, except 


Himself?—He might save Himself. But He 
would never be the Christ. 

If He went to Jerusalem, He might win the 
world by the grace of God. But it would be by 
His own death, 


a 
DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 121 


V 
Which would He do? Now was the great 
moment. 
The road north and Home! 
The road south and Calvary! 
Christ indeed at the Cross-roads. 


Why do we foolishly limit Christ’s “ Tempta- 


tion” to that early dilemma in the desert? It isa _~ 


thousand pities, for it leads undiscerning people to 
imagine that the rest of His life was beautifully 
serene, so different from our broken ways. But it 
is not true. Wherever and whenever the flesh and 
the spirit strove for mastery, our Lord was 
tempted. Indeed, I believe that in the clear light 
of early hope and radiant faith, the temptation in 
the desert was easier for His soul than this last 
bitter agony of consecration. However He was 
tempted then, He was never more tempted than 
here, when at last He set His face to go to 
Jerusalem. If He faltered or failed now, He 
faltered and failed for ever. Galilee or Jerusa- 
lem—which ? 

In the desert, He had wrestled with Satan. Here 
He wrestled with God. 


VI 


This is Gethsemane—on this white ribbon of 
road! 


The other Gethsemane, amid the olive trees, is 


122 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


a troubled reflection of this. But for this, there 
would have been no garden scene: and in the 
strength of this, the garden scene was fought 
and won. 

Having once faced Jerusalem and pledged His 
loyalty to God, nothing thereafter could ever 
daunt Him. This carried everything with it. Here 
He first tasted the bitterness of death. 


Stand back, you disciples! We today stand 
back with you. For we know that as He strides 


before you, with set face and clenched hands, He © 


is fighting out His last great temptation. He sees 
before Him the cup which God is holding out. He 
sees the cross like a dark shadow before His 


feet... « Look at His drawn face! :...: Bat@ 


He has made the great decision and settled His 
dilemma. He has finished His passion. Geth- 
semane itself can hold no terror now. Even the 
cross hereafter is only a means to an end. 

He has settled the end. Let God send His own 
means. 


VII 
In what does the “agony of Christ” consist? 


) 


Se a 


It does not consist, as so many think, in His : 
physical suffering, but in the anguish of mind — 


through which He faced it. We are inclined— 


some churches are especially sinners in this regard 
—to lay too much stress on the mere physical pain 


ae ee 





DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 125 


which Christ endured, as if that were the one thing 
exceptional in His case. But so far as pain goes, 
every great soul who has died a martyr’s death has ~ 
had an equal share with Jesus. Oddly enough, too, 
as some of us saw in warfare, the more cowardly 
a man is, the greater is this part of his agony—the 
mere pain. 

No! . . . The real passion of Jesus was not 

what He suffered physically, but what He endured ' 
in His mind and soul. It was not the pain of His 
twitching body, but the infinitely deeper pain of 
- squaring His life with God’s will, turning His soul 
in the way the Father pointed, giving Himself for 
a needy world, “a ransom for many.” 
You may think He was mistaken in this. But 
even if you are right, that does not lessen His 
agony, if He believed it. . . . He did believe it. 
He believed that only by His death could men 
live. And as He walked to Jerusalem now, He saw 
that the cross was near. 

His suffering lay in the agony of mind to , 
face that. 


Vill 


Here, then, outside Jericho, finally and fully, 
He faced the cross. “ Behold we go up to Jerusa- 
lem, and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto 
the chief priests.” 

I want you to turn your eyes to that fe on 
the road. Watch Him! 





124 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


It was no easy thing for Him to face His call. 
The kind of gospel that makes the cross an easy 
thing for Jesus, as if He took it all in His natural 
stride, as if it caused Him no torment, as if He 
marched up to it with an easy smile,—that kind of 
gospel is trash, not worth having. It would not 
save a dog, far less a human soul. 

There is blood in the real Gospel: there must be 
blood in any gospel! 

I am not speaking of the physical blood of 
Jesus. I squirm at the man who dips his hands 
in the blood of our Lord, and holds them up as a 
proof of God’s love. Strange proof! Blood 
proves nothing except that it is blood. It all 
depends on what the blood represents: and even 
then, it is only a poor physical symbol of deeper 
things. . . . Physical blood may mean nothing. 
But there is the blood of agony, and decision, and 
anguish, and perfect consecration. ‘That is what 
Jesus gave—and gave here—the blood of hard 
obedience. 


Consciously—knowing what He did—knowing 
what He faced—knowing the sin of men—know- 
ing the mind of God—He set His face to go to 
Jerusalem. I like that phrase used elsewhere, “ He 
set Hrs face.” A strong anguished face. A face 
of infinite resolve. A face of sacrifice. 

Jerusalem or Galilee? 

The south road or the north? 





DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 125 


The Cross or peace? 
Peace by the Cross. 
He made the choice here. 


IX 


He dared. Why did He dare? 

Because He knew. . . . I might have dared, 
if I had not known. I find that most of my cour- 
age comes from blessed ignorance. I do not know 
what tomorrow holds, or what Jerusalem means: 
therefore I march breastforwards. If I knew, I 
should be paralysed with fear. Knowledge would 
kill me. 

He knew. 


Because He believed. . . . I dare because I 
believe that God will make an exception of me and 
_will work a miracle. He will let me escape. Kind 
God! If I do face Jerusalem, I disbelieve in a 
cross. He faced Jerusalem believing in the cross: 
_but He believed, as I seldom do, in a God behind 
| the cross. He believed in death, His own death: 
but He believed that death could not hold Him. 
_ He saw a grave, His own grave: but He saw it 
open to the Syrian stars, with the stone rolled 
away. 

He believed. 





Because He loved. . . . Generally, I dare 
because I do not care. Our great deeds of heroism 


| 
| 


126 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 


are the fruit of desperation. JI am often brave, 
when my heart is dead. If I love too much, I am 
afraid. Love makes me a coward for the things 
I love. 

He loved. 


So outside Jericho, having faced Himself and — 
God, He turned and walked on the south road. © 
Quietly. Resolutely. Every step took Him nearer © 
to a cross. I am glad that the cross was not an — 
accident bravely faced, but an event foreseen and © 


quietly reckoned with. 
He settled that here. 
The Gethsemane of the Cross-roads. 











Vill 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


WANA! pressing sense of awe in His own heart, 
eS Wl Jesus had reached Jerusalem, 

eS) —s As He walked through the familiar 
streets once more, He saw the whole city in a new 





light. How could He do otherwise? For He saw 


it now as His great antagonist, and at the end, as 
His grave. “A lamb to the slaughter.” 

At least, we know that He saw the Temple 
differently. 


No doubt, in His frequent visits during the past 
years, He had been roused to anger and loathing 
by the sight of the traders and money-changers 
who crowded the court of the Temple with their 
booths and tables. Wise people assured Him that 
it was indeed a great boon for the pilgrim- 


_ worshippers to be able thus to purchase their votive” 
_ offerings here at the Temple door. This privilege 


was a real convenience for the pilgrims. Other- 





| 


wise, they might have had to search Jerusalem 
for appropriate sacrifices, or perhaps bring their 
pigeons and lambs from distant Galilee. In any 


_ case, the outlanders from Africa and Asia could 


127 


138 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


have their foreign money so conveniently ex- 
changed for current coin. With a fixed rate of 
exchange and duly authorised “ bankers,” this ac- 
commodation at the Temple may have been a real 
privilege and blessing. 

None the less, such a commercial invasion of the 
Temple courts by these bargaining hucksters was 
grossly irregular. The practice had crept in 
through the influence of the sons of Annas, and had 
been condoned on plausible grounds for over a 
generation. It was a “distinct convenience!” 
. Many wrongs are tolerated in that name. 

Besides, it had now been permitted for so many 
years that it seemed almost a tradition of the 
Fathers. Custom can gild iniquity! . . . Con- 
venience and custom, an alliance that has broken 
the back of most reformers! 


I 


With a heart so deeply stirred by His own 
complete self-commitment, Jesus came into the 
Temple. His renewed consecration worked in 
Him like fire. 

We know what He did,—an act so daring and 
dramatic, so triumphantly autocratic, that it fanned 
the smouldering opposition of the Priests into a 
white flame. But that was a risk which His 
righteous anger must face in such a clear cause. 


He entered into the Temple amid the jostling 





THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 129 


_ pilgrim crowds, where they were chaffering with 
the traders for pigeons and lambs for their altar 
offerings. With a quick glance around at this 
sordid desecration, He picked up some ropes, cut 
belike from the heaped hampers of cackling fowls 
around Him. ‘Twisting the ropes passionately into 
a knotted scourge, He called aloud on God’s name 
_and began to drive the hucksters and the bargaining 
pilgrims in a confused medley from the Temple- 
courts. A choice cleansing indeed! With pure 
anger flashing from His eyes, He swept the 
tabble out. In God’s name, declaiming against 
this sordid desecration, He overthrew the tables 
of the money-changers until their copper coins 
rattled chimingly on the stone-floors and rolled 
circling like cart-wheels into every corner of the 
Temple court. 

It is a great scene. 

I love this view of His flashing eyes. A fierce, 
angry, passionate Christ. . . . Then we teach 
our children to sing ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and 
pmild.” ... Mild? 








It is an amazing thing to me that at the 
moment His drastic deed passed almost unchal- 
lenged. But then, one might as well challenge 
a whirlwind! He had against Him the solid 
weight of tradition, and public and official toler- 
-ance. Yet when He swept them out, as a house- 
_wife sweeps out dust, no one raised a word of 





| 
: 


130 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


protest. ‘They fled from His anger in a moral 
panic! 

Perhaps, they were too astonished and stupefied 
at His daring! Perhaps, they were too choked 
with their spluttering rage! Perhaps, they were 
too busy catching the stampeded sheep and goats, 
while the money-changers grubbed on their knees 
after their rolling coins! 

Somehow, I think the reason lay deeper than 
mere stupefaction. 

It is astonishing how a brave act, done in a clear 
cause of righteousness, will render its opponents 
tongue-tied with shame. They may yelp like scur- 
rying dogs: but apart from their hoarse cries, they 
know that there is nothing to be said. A good 
deed, strongly done, is its own best argument. 

some people have wondered how that crowd of 
interested traders and the greater crowd of wor- 
shippers whose needs they honestly served, allowed 
a lone man like this to hustle them out, with 
scarcely a note of resistance. 

It is no miracle. 

It is just the silent even unwilling consent which 
a brave act of goodness commands—always com- 
mands—by striking its opponents dumb with guilt. 
They had nothing to say. 


II 


It took the Priests a whole day to recover from 
their startled rage. Those who were standing by 


THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 131 


when the drama was acted were forced to choke 
down their passion. They knew that if they raised 
their voice in protest, they would be condemned in 
the eyes of all just men. For though this trade in 
the Temple was permitted and condoned, it had not 
gone without protest. In his own conscience, every 
fair man knew that Christ’s act could not be 
challenged. 

There was a hurried meeting of the Sanhedrin 
that night, and no doubt a full attendance. What 
a wagging of tongues, like the angry buzzing of 
bees! What a screed of slander! Their suppressed 
passion had now a chance of boiling over safely in 
private. 

In the end, however ungraciously, they admitted 
to themselves that though custom and convenience 
tolerated the money-changers, Jesus had a clear 
case. So when passion had eased itself by ex- 
pression, moderate counsels prevailed. They 
agreed to send a deputation, strong and well- 
chosen, in an apparent spirit of reasonableness, to 
interview Jesus. ‘They would ask this man a 
blunt question. 

I said a blunt question: but it was as sharp as it 
was blunt. 

“By what authority, Sir, doest thou these 
things?” 


Apparently reasonable, but as I hope to show, 
making a wholly unreasonable demand. 


b3i2 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


Blunt, but very sharp. 

The sharpness of the question lay in this, that 
it presented Jesus with an awkward dilemma: and 
His answer to the dilemma meant much for His 
ministry. 


IIT 


Obviously, there are only two straight answers 
to this question. Whichever of these two answers 
He gave, Jesus would sacrifice His reputation with 
the populace. 

On the one hand, He might say openly and 
clearly, “ My authority is from God. I do these 
acts in the name and by the Spirit of God.” 

If He had said this, what would have happened? 

For the first time, He would have given these 
biassed priests something they desired, something 
also which He had carefully withheld from them, 
—a handle by which they could hold Him on a 
distinct charge of blasphemy. Christ had still 
work to do, definite and necessary work. He had 
this last rich week of service to live. We know 
that He never openly courted His own death. If 
the cross came, He would face it. But on no 
occasion did He ever say or do anything that would 
deliberately hasten or precipitate the end. While 
He did not fear or shun it, no one can honestly 
assert that He fanned the flame of hate. 

On the other hand, if He said, “ My authority 
is from men and out of my own heart,” He would 


~—— 


THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 133 


have ruined His character as a prophet with the 
people, besides saying what was not true. If He 
admitted that His authority was only the assurance 
of a strong, courageous human character, He might 
bid farewell to any hope of winning the people or 
winning us. 

This was a dilemma, with sharp prongs. 


IV 


It was a well-laid plan, begotten in the cunning 
of hate. They hoped to make Jesus pronounce His 
own sentence, and become His own executioner. 
Whatever way He answered this apparently rea- 
sonable question, He dug His own grave. 

So in the morning, when Jesus had returned 
from Bethany and was walking in the courts of 
the cleansed Temple, they came to Him and put 
their catch-question, almost as if they were asking 
a reasonable explanation which they felt to be 
their due. 

“By what authority doest thou these things?” 
By “these things,” they meant not only that single 
dramatic act in the Temple, but His whole career 
as a prophet and preacher. 


But they were reckoning without their host. 

To begin with, Jesus does not consider what a 
man asks so much as the spirit in which he asks it. 
The heart behind a question makes it sincere or 
insincere. Indeed, according to the mind of the 


134 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


man, it may not be a question at all, but only 
a trap. 

He had proclaimed the answer to their question 
a thousand times in their hearing. He had said, 
openly and often, that His charter was from 
God, and that He was God’s messenger and 
God’s Son. It was not as if He now refused to 
answer their query. What He refused to answer 
was its spirit. 

Further, no one can really produce credentials 
from God, as he would produce a written character 
from his breast-pocket. ‘The truth of God has to 
be judged, not on outside evidence or outside 
authority, but for itself. That is the only way in 
which it can be judged. Truth does not ask for 
any outward authority: it asks only for inner 
assent. 

But most of all, Jesus believed as a principle that 
no man need ever give account to others for doing 
the work of God’s Kingdom. Goodness is its own 
best guarantee. If it is not, what is there in heaven 
or earth that can guarantee it? 


This scene reveals to us what it was that 
“angered” Jesus in all His dealings with these 
priests. They were supposed to be the official 
preachers of goodness: yet they wilfully shut their 
eyes to all the goodness of our Lord. In His view, 
this vicious attitude of soul was akin to the un- 
pardonable sin. For in order to defeat Christ’s 


a rR meme rr eer ee cnr naar er ae RSE TREE SESE TURES 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 135 


goodness, they asserted that He did His gracious 
work by the aid of the devil! . . . A man who 
says that, is standing in the last ditch in his resist- 
ance to God. 

V 

We know how Jesus turned them off. 

Not, mark you, because He was afraid, or be- 
cause He was unwilling to answer. We know that 
He had answered their question every day of His 
life, when any seeking soul sought His help. But 
He now refused to give an answer to their specious 
question because He discerned the wile spirit of 
their heart. 

But Iam wrong. He did answer them. 

For He generously gave them a blessed oppor- 
tunity of answering themselves,—which is the only 
way in which this type of question can ever be 
answered by anyone. 

In giving His reply, He took the great and noble 
instance of John the Baptist, that incomparable 
prophet of God. Everybody knew the work of 
John, and everybody had been given a full oppor- 
tunity of judging him. 

This was an argument from the less to the 
greater. If they could answer their own question 
in regard to John, how much more clearly could 
they answer it in regard to Him? 

Tell me this now,—a Roland indeed for their 
Oliver—tell me this, “ The Baptism of John, which 


136 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


you all know and with which so many of you were 
baptised, the Baptism of John, was it from Heaven 
or or men?”’ 

Answer me! 


This counter-question of Jesus is not an evasion, 
but is the necessary preliminary to any serious 
answer of their own question. For Christ’s ques- 
tion is the plainest test of their sincerity and genu- 
ineness. If they were genuine people, they would 
have no difficulty in answering Him regarding 
John. I want you to observe that had they 
answered Him fairly, as well they might, Jesus 
would have dealt as fairly with them. He was 
always fair. 

We know how they replied. 

The deputation drew off to a corner of the court- 
yard and whispered solemnly and secretly together. 
If we say “of men,” our lives will be in danger, 
for the people revere the sacred name of the Bap- 
tist and count him a prophet of God. No, we dare 
not say “of men.” . . . If we say “of God,” 


we shall be playing into His hands. We and not 


He will be in a cleft stick: for He will turn at 
once and say, “Why, then, did ye not believe 
Him? ” 

I can imagine the whimsical yet pitying eyes 
with which Jesus looked at them as they conferred 


together in the corner. He watched and waited | 


with amused eyes. 


,a se SS ee ee ee 


THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 137 


At last, when they had debated the matter to 
their own satisfaction, they came forward and 
said, ‘‘ Master, we cannot tell.” 

Christ looked at them, seeing deep down into 
their hypocritical soul. I do not know any more 
austere and withering answer than His. “ Neither 
do I tell you by what authority I do these 
thingsih es 5 Go! 

Whited sepulchres! 


VI 

What explains Christ’s answer? 

Insincerity explains it. Subterfuge explains it. 
Deceit explains it. A lie explains it. That is all! 
These men were thoroughly dishonest, with them- 
selves and with God. 


Should Christ have answered them? And was 
His reply only a clever evasion? 

In the first place, Christ does not answer, then 
or now, people like these. We know how readily 
and graciously He deals with all honest enquirers. 
When a member of this party, a Scribe, came ask- 
ing one of the petty dialectic questions of the day 
—in his case asking it honestly—Jesus answered 
Him as honestly as he asked it. “ Which is the 
greatest commandment, Lord?” : and when Christ 
answered him, the man marvelled. There was no 
needy seeker whom Jesus did not treat with infinite 
courtesy. But there are types of people and types, 


138 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


of questions, insincere or sneering, with which He 
will have nothing to do. 
It is well for us to know this. 


But further, He answered their question in the 
perfect way. For had they been sincere or eager 
for light, He gave them a clear lead and guidance 
how they might answer it for themselves. Natu- 
rally, as religious leaders, they ought to have been 
able to answer that question about John. They 
had seen him and noted his power. They had first- 
hand facts about the marvellous reformation he 
had wrought. Therefore, it stood to reason that if 
they could answer regarding the Baptist, they would 
have no difficulty in answering regarding Jesus. 
It was simply an argument from the less to the 
greater. 

But such men steal the sun out of their own 
skies. 


VII 


I wish you to see how perfectly and fully Christ 
answered the question of these priests. For His 
notable reply states some broad principles, that 
mean everything for us. 


In the first place, no good man ever needs out- 
side authority to permit him to do good. ‘The only 
authority is that of his own conscience and his own 
Master. Righteousness lies in the nature of things, 


THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 139 


and its own “ rightness” is its only guarantee. If. 
a thing is good, it is already established eternally as 
the only thing that has a right to be! A good man 
holds his charter from no man, and need answer to 
no man. He holds his charter from no Church, 
and need answer to no church. He holds his char- 
ter direct from God and from God alone. 

It would be a queer world if we had to give 
reasons for doing good, or were forced to quote 
authorities for being virtuous. For the authorities 
would be less than that which they were supposed 
to authorise! You can never authorise goodness by 
saying that it is expedient or fitting or proper: you 
can only authorise it by saying that it is good! 
Its only authority lies in itself, in the nature of 
what it is. 

If you will not dub me an extremist, I shall tell 
you what it all amounts to. . . . If it were 
borne into the minds of most good men and women 
that the only way to righteousness is the wrecking 
‘of every den of iniquity in this city and the clearing 
of defiling houses by the high hand of force, then 
to those who asked and demanded authority, I 
should feel inclined to say, ‘‘ Goodness such as this 
needs no buttress except its own pure self. A good 
act is the only thing in the world that has an abso- 
lute right to be.” 

A boy friend of mine once took a reel of thread 
and a bamboo-cane, and began to tie a twenty- 
year-old lime tree to the cane to “keep it safe.” 


140 TARE DILEMMA OFUAOTH ORE TY. 


That is no more laughable than the attempt to 
authorise goodness such as Christ’s by quoting 
authorities that are infinitely less than Himself. 
By what authority do you thus cleanse the Temple? 
And the only answer lies in the act itself. It is a 
pure act of God: it is a deed of goodness that 
authenticates and justifies itself. 


Christ’s answer states a second principle. 

The Priests asked Him. for a special sign of 
authority, something out of the common, by which 
they might be convinced. But they had all the 
ordinary authority before them that a reasonable 
soul can either expect or possess. They had the 
authority of His works, His life, His words, which 
in common with everybody else they might have 
judged with an open mind. But that did not satisfy 
them. They wanted some startling signal sign of 
His claim to be what He was and do what He did. 

Jesus had settled this temptation for Himself in 
the Desert. He resolved to win or lose men by 
ordinary ways of reason and appeal. He might 
have used the extra-ordinary: but He put that aside 
as unworthy of Him and God. He resolved to 
appeal only to the mind and heart and soul of men, 
—their reasonable nature. 

In this instance, the Pharisees are practically 
asking Him for a little private miracle to sub- 
stantiate His claims. A little private miracle or a 
big public miracle—what does it matter? They 


THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 141 


are equally beyond the self-imposed scope of 
Christ’s work. He will preach God and God's 
truth: He will appeal to the human soul: but 
beyond that, He will not go. If men do not 
choose Him for the worth of His message, for its 
essential appeal to the human soul, He can do 
nothing more. 

“ By what authority doest thou these things?” 

“T ask you to use your reasonable mind and 
soul in judging the great message of John, as it 
appeals to your reason. What do you think of 
John’s message? When. you have settled that, by 
the great gifts God has given you, tell me what 
you think of mine? If you can do the one—as 
you ought to do—you may more easily do the 
other.” 

We know enough about Jesus, enough about His 
life, His work, His character and His message, to 
enable any and all of us to come to a decision about 
Him. And it is we who have got to come to a 
decision! He stands among us and quietly asks 
us “ Whom say ye that I am?” ‘Tons of addi- 
tional evidence would not satisfy a man who can- 
not be satisfied with what there is. 


There is a third principle. 

The religion of Jesus is a faith. In saying this, 
I do not contrast faith with knowledge: only fools 
do that. The genius of the Christian faith is that 
it looks forward one day to perfect knowledge! 





142 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 


But I contrast faith with authority,—that 
ancient, and very modern, passion to have some 
outside guarantee on which we can lean. So many 
of us do not trust in Jesus for Himself, but we 
trust in what lesser authorities say about Him! 
We trust, for instance, in an infallible book, or an 
infallible church, or in some infallible expert. It 
is pathetic to see how so many modern folk ask 
for some authority on which they are going to rest 
their views of Jesus! 

We are cursed with experts and authorities. It 
may be a church, or a book, or a creed, or a man,— 
what does it matter? It is the same irreligious 
thing. “ Authority” is always irreligious! 

Our love of experts! . . . Ifa noted scientist 
pronounces a dictum—often a wild guess or a leap 
of “faith”—we go twittering around and fire 
him as an authority at every hapless soul we meet. 
“Surely you do not believe that? Have you not 
heard what Professor So-and-So says?” That 
settles the poor wight,—especially if the scientist 
owns a fine foreign name which your hearer is 
ashamed to say he has never heard before! 

Or we quote an article in a creed, made in 
ancient days by “experts.” ‘This is what the creed 
says, you poor mouse! And the poor mouse dare 
not cheep. 

Or we quote a church. Here is the authority of 
the saints and fathers, the decrees of the Church. 
This is what they said: this is what they laid down 


THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 143 


for us. Surely you do not set your little mind up 
against that! 

We take everything today—our thinking, our 
ideas, our education, our statecraft, even our re- 
ligion,—from the hands of specialised authorities. 
It is sheer mental ruin, especially in religion. 
“ What think ye of Jesus? ’’—and you for yourself 
are as able to settle your personal relation to Him 
as any scholar that was ever born. Jesus believed 
that the simplest soul could accept Him fully as 
Lord and Master, and could do it,—nay, must do 
it—out of his own heart and mind. Jesus is His 
own and only authority. 


By what authority, then, doest thou these things? 
God’s or man’s? Jesus did not evade the question. 
But He gave the Priests the only answer that is 
ever possible. Be ye the Judges! 

It is always and only a matter for your own soul. 


IX 
THE DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


cast the “tts 

#\ In that moment of vision, when He 
1 weighed the offers of Fate, He had re- 
ive to face all that Jerusalem might hold. 

What did it hoid? 

Whatever we think of His forecast of the cross, 
at least the most hesitant of us must admit that 
He knew the certain danger of His decision. The 
hatred of the official classes was now such an 
angry and bitter thing that He would have been 
more blind than the least discerning of us had 
He not known that Jerusalem meant plotting and 
death. 

He knew it. He had known it long. 





Now that the Sadducees, the princely priests of 
Jerusalem, had joined forces with the Pharisees and 
lent their political distinction to the opposition, the 
reception that Jesus would receive in the city of 
David was only too sure. So long as the Pharisees 
and Scribes alone were His opponents, the issue 
might be considered purely religious. If so, Pilate, 
as a typical Roman, in line with Rome’s generous 

144 


DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 145 


policy of toleration, would have nothing to do with 
it. Like Gallio, he would ‘‘ care for none of these 
things”! Rome allowed a fine liberty in religious 
opinion. : 

When the weight of the Sadducees and High 
Priests, however, was thrown solidly into the scale, 
the matter became dangerously political. For the 
first time, the possibility of a trial before the Pro- 
curator, on a political charge involving death, be- 
came a probability, if not a certainty. The Sad- 
ducees by their social influence could easily en- 
sure that. 

Knowing this danger and yet facing the ordeal, 
Jesus came to Jerusalem. With these clear eyes of 
His, He foresaw exactly what His act involved. 
Again and again, for the comfort of His disciples, 
He had spoken plainly of His death. After that 
striking incident at Jericho, it would be simple 
folly for anyone to imagine that Jesus was taken 
by surprise. 

Surprise? . . . The Son of Man must die. 


Why need He have come? 

There are people who say that by His coming, 
He forced His own death upon Himself, and thrust 
His neck into the noose. A little prudence on His 
part might have averted it all. Since He knew that 

Jerusalem was ready to be inflamed, He could have 
' withheld the one spark that lit the fire, by with- 
holding Himself. Did He not play into the hands 


146 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


of His enemies, and also precipitate His own end 
by this rash adventure to Jerusalem? 


Such a view misses two crucial things. 

In the first place, it misses the most important 
of all considerations, the character and mind of 
our Lord. In talking about the death of Jesus, the 
one thing we must remember is Jesus Himself. To 
Him, duty and His own idea of God’s work meant 
everything. ‘The Father had given Him a great 
work to do: and He would do it. He could not 
have been the Saviour of the world, had He been 
untrue to Himself in any way. 

He knew there was danger, which focussed itself 
in a cross. Should He have allowed this inner 
knowledge to influence His outward movements? 
Even with an average acquaintance of our 
own, what would we think of him, if he balked 
at duty because it was dangerous? . . . Though 
there was grave and deadly danger out there in 
Flanders, that did not keep your sons from going 
there! What would you have thought of them, if 
it had? 


In the second place, this criticism misses Christ’s 
own view of His mission. 

He believed that He came not only to tell people 
about God, as you and I might do, but to show 
them God, to exhibit God. His message was Him- 
self, not only what He said but what He was. His 


DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 147 


life and teaching witnessed to the love of the 
Father: but He believed that the most startling and 
perfect witness to God might be His death. Yes, 
He believed this—that His own death, if it came as 
the fulfilment of duty and love to God and man, 
would exhibit the very heart and soul of a re- 
deeming Father. 

No! We cannot judge Jesus or His acts apart 
from His own view of Himself and His work. 


“The Son of Man must die,” He said. 

Must? 

What is the meaning of that strange word? 

There would have been no “ must,” of course, 
had He gone from Jericho northwards to the slopes 
of Galilee, back to His loving friends among whom 
He might have lived in great honour. But as we 
know, He regarded that possibility as dire retreat 
and dereliction of duty. To shun Jerusalem was 
simply to deny God. If therefore He kept to the 
way of truth and the mind of His Father, He must 
face the Capital. His own divine sense of service 
called Him. 


The argument in His heart was not “J must , 
die,’ but “I must face God’s call whether I die 


or no.” If obedience to God summons me to 
Jerusalem, I must go: and if there is a cross, I 
must not shirk it. 

The “must” lay in the obedience of His own 
heart. It was not the “ must” of outward neces- 


a 


[rere en | 
148 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


sity but the deeper “must” of inward faithful- 
ness. “ No man taketh my life from me, but I lay 
it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, 
and I have power to take it again.” . . . The 
only thing I have not power to do is to deny God 
and my own conscience. 

The argument, therefore, is as plain as it is 
exalting, “The Son of Man must be true to God. 
God calls me in my heart to Jerusalem. Jerusa- 
lem means a cross. ‘Therefore the Son of Man 
must die.” 

Some people speak as if there were miraculous 
virtue in the Death of Christ as a@ mere death. 
There is none. We have all to die some day, 
naturally or by violence. The virtue in any death 
consists solely in the motive and the sense of duty 
that lie behind it, which alone give it moral value. 
It is not the bare simple fact that Jesus died, that 
may redeem us; it is the greater fact of why 
He died. 

Christ died because He loved the world. 


So He came to Jerusalem. 
With open eyes! 


I 


I wish you now to see Him among the olive 
trees in the Garden of Pain, where He faced one 
of His extraordinary dilemmas. 

They had left the Supper-Table. 


DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 149 


Jesus, even in speaking about His on-coming 
death, had been marvellously serene. There was a 
singular composure in every word He spoke. Look 
at these passages again, and you will see a calm 
controlled Christ. In the institution of the Supper 
itselfi—which, remember, was a forecast of His 
death,—_He was the epitome of restraint and quiet 
assurance. “Take, eat, this is my body, which is 
broken for you.” Could anything be more com- 
posed than His whole personal conduct during these 
last few days, and especially these last few hours? 

Then Judas, that twisted soul, departed on his 
evil errand. Slinking through the moonlit streets 
to follow Christ to the Garden, he went to those 
who had bought him and asked for a band of sol- 
diers. Jesus and the eleven stepped out of the 
friendly house and made for Gethsemane. 

They crossed the brook Kedron. 

Bishop Lightfoot remarks that all the blood from 
the sacrifices of the Temple altars was drained into 
this little stream. Perhaps at the moment that 
Jesus crossed it, the water was running red. If so, 
there was soon to be a greater sacrifice. 

The blood of lambs. 

The blood of The Lamb. 


The little enclosed garden, planted with strag- 
gling olive trees, was a favourite resort of our 
Lord. It was a place of quiet, especially at this 
time, amid the clamour of the droves of foreign 


150 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


pilgrims who jostled each other through the streets 
of the city. We may imagine it, if we will, as a 
private garden on the hillside of Olivet, perhaps 
the property of a secret friend, a place certainly 
where He was welcome and where He could be 
sure of seclusion and quiet. 

By the sacred association of memory, places may 
come to have a peculiar message for the human 
heart. We have known of cases where the vision 
of a lonely hillside, an old whitewashed farmhouse 
with eaved windows, or a little island long-unvisited 
but long-remembered, has melted a hard heart into 
unwonted tenderness. 

So for the last time, as to a remembered place, 
Jesus turned towards Gethsemane, the garden of 
Olives. Like a wounded stag making for the high 
slopes, He set out for this quiet garden where He 
could face His big hour alone. He had a tryst with 
God and His own soul. 


I wish to emphasise the marvel of His compo- 
sure up to this point. 

He entered the garden quietly. As quietly,, He 
asked His disciples to lie down in the cool summer 
night and rest. ‘Taking three of them with Him— 
the three who had shared great experiences with 
. Him of old—He went deeper into the olive trees. 
Bidding the chosen three watch with Him, as if He 
felt a need of human fellowship and sympathy, He 
went forward Himself alone. 


DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 151 


So quietly! So assuredly! 


Then, alone by Himself, His great heart broke. 

Falling on the ground, He cried aloud with 
anguish, again and again, “ Let this cup pass from 
me, O God. Let this cup pass from me.” An 
anguished soul, stretching out imploring hands 
to God. 

As they first heard His agonised call, I can 
picture the questioning eyes with which the dis- 
ciples gazed into each other’s faces in the distorting 
moonlight. Then, weary beyond words, after that 
hectic week in Jerusalem, sleep had its gentle way 
with them. And if they still heard His cries, it was 
as those who hear in broken dreams. 

He was now unheard by any except God. 


II 

Why did He cry? 

Did He repent His decision? . . . His own 
words and His own acts fully answer that. “ Let 
this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, 
but as thou wilt.” There is no possible room for 
repentance or regret in these words. That decision 
made at Jericho, to face Jerusalem and all its possi- 
bilities, had been made once and for all. His words 
suggest only an infinite trust in God, and certainly 
there is no regret in His heart. 

Did He only now realise, as a man in warfare 
might, that death was startlingly near? . . . Our 


152 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


records show that for a long time He had reckoned 
with death, not as something which might be, but 
as something which must be. We know that He 
had opened His heart on this matter in repeated 
warnings to the disciples. In that Last Supper it- 
self, He had declared His mind, and made His 
death a sacrament. | 

Was He suddenly afraid with the natural shrink- 
ing of the flesh? . . . It would be foolish to 
say that Jesus had no natural human fear of death: 
but, on the other hand, the one thing about Him 
regarding which any fair man may be sure is that 
He was no coward recoiling. from suffering because 
of simple physical pain. The perfect proof of this 
lies in the later events. After this scene, He went 
through every conceivable form of brutal treat- 
ment and the sharp pain of the crucifixion without 
one murmur. Without one selfish murmur! Apart 
from that solitary cry, “I thirst,” and the beauti- 
ful commitment of His own soul to God, our 
Lord’s words in His dying were uniquely imper- 
sonal. With all other men, pain drives their 
thoughts in on themselves: pain drove His thoughts 
out for. others 7.0.00...) Le ttself a Onatemor 
uniqueness ! 

Was tt a sheer nervous breakdown, such a mo- 
mentary spiritual collapse as might overtake any 
sensitive over-wrought soul? . . . If so, we 
have to explain two astonishing things—His mag- 
nificent and reasoned calm before, and His even 


rene ener 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 153 


more magnificent and more reasoned calm immedi- 
ately thereafter. Five minutes later, when He 
faced the rabble of Judas, He was the only com- 
posed and unflurried person in the entire crowd. 
A nervous collapse does not work like that! 

Was it a fierce gust of self-pity, that He, a 
young man of thirty-three summers, had now to 
leave the joys of life and friendship? He had a 
love of life, like any of us. Was this experience 
just a spasm of bitter self-pity? . . . To begin 
with, Jesus sat lightly to life in a way that few of 
us can estimate. The world and its ways had no 
hold on His heart. Moreover, as we know, He 
was not bound up in possessions or wedded to 
things as we are. He loved life, it is true: but 
He never loved it better than God. All through 
His ministry, He lived solely in the belief that the 
Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister. There is no room for self-pity in a mind 
that thought as Jesus thought. 


ITI 
Not one of these things accounts for this garden 
scene. The fullest allowance for the shrinking of 
a highly-sensitive soul completely fails to explain 
this fierce dread. 
Especially with one like Jesus. 


Why did He cry? 
It does not lie with us even to imagine that we 


154 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


can understand a soul like His, or can compre- 
hend the thoughts that passed through His mind. 
There are depths even in a fellow-man’s suffering 
that we can never plumb. How much more with 
Christ ? 

Yet it may be a spiritual gain for us to observe 
three things. 

1, Quite evidently, this was a passionate return 
of that inner debate which He had held with Him- 
self in the Contest in the Desert. 

There, as we remember, He had been tempted to 
accomplish His mission in different ways. Not 
necessarily evil ways, but ways that “ differed in 
excellence.” Indeed, the debate about possibilities 
was the soul of His temptation. . . . Here, 
again, as He faces the last things, He is tempted 
to ask Himself the same question. Js there no 
other way? Must He redeem the world thus? Is 
He shut up to the Cross? 

In vision, He sees the Father holding out the 
cup in His hands for Him to take. But 
but . . . is it possible for the cup to pass? Is 
there no other way? 

“Let this cup pass from me.” ‘That is a definite 
petition to God, a real anguished prayer. I hold 
that we can make nothing of these words that will 
be worthy of Him or the occasion unless we see 
that He was tempted, quite definitely, to let the cup 
pass. Why should He not ask this question and 
offer this prayer? If He had not asked it, He 


DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 155 


would have been a mere automaton, and not a suf- 
fering debating soul like me. 

I should not care to think that the cross was an 
easy thing for Jesus, a cheap thing, a light thing. 
His self-committal is the dearer to me that it was 
terribly hard. We know that Jesus faced it in sweat 
and tears. These tears baptised His full obedience. 

It is a cheap, cheap gospel that makes the thorny 
way of duty easy for Jesus, as if it cost Him 
nothing. It cost Him—yes! it cost Him,—blood 
and agonies and tears. What more could it 
cost Him? 

I think we can only value His finished work as 
we see the deep passion of debate. Pray God we 
see it! That He should debate it, is no sin. That 
having debated it, He should fully accept it, crowns 
Him Christ. 


2. I do not see how this scene can be explained, 
for a person like Jesus, by any theory that does 
not take account of its shame. 

The apostles, who were so near to Him, medi- 
tated deeply on His work. As they reflected on 
the agonies they had seen Him endure, they came 
to the clear belief that it was the shame of the 
Cross that broke Jesus down. The Epistle to the 
Hebrews speaks openly about this “shame of the 
cross,’ What does that mean? Not only that one 
like Jesus should die thus,—like a common criminal 
—but that He should hope to redeem the world 


156 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


thus! 3 gu Daas Ve Byva crosse)) an ho Wiive 
the idea was a joke to the Greeks, sheer foolish- 
ness: and it was a cruel offence to the Jews. ‘That 
cross seemed to them the last unutterable thing. 

Bowed and prostrate there among the olive trees 
in agony, this dreamer hoped to win and redeem 
the world for God. A great dream! So great a 
dream that it should be nobly fulfilled! . . . But 
look! To perfect this great dream, God was now 
offering Him a cross! This emblem of shame. 
This ancient curse. ‘To redeem the world! A cross 
where they butchered slaves. A cross where they 
slew their rogues. When we contrast this starless 
night with the glorious dawn of the Baptism, we 
can understand the questioning in His heart. Is 
this the only means by which God can be perfectly 
obeyed? If this was the Father’s chosen way of 
redeeming the world and answering Christ’s glori- 
ous consecration, it was just a path of simple 
shame. No less. 

Would Jesus accept it? He came to do the 
Father’s will: but was there no other way? Must 
He walk this grim road? Let this cup pass. 

You do not honour Him, remember, by thinking 
that there was no revulsion in His heart, and no 
agony of debate. This cup! If ever a prayer was 
passionate, this was. 


3. Our only comprehension, however partial, of 
the agony and dread of this scene in Christ’s heart 


a eee] 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 157 


lies in our reading it wholly in line with His 
own words. 

After all, what a man thinks about a thing makes 
it good or evil, hard or easy for him. 

A young officer, hardly more than a school-boy, 
joined our battalion in France. The captain of his 
company sent him out early for a reconnaissance 
in No-man’s Land. His fellow-officer who ac- 
companied him, reported afterwards that the boy 
was useless, as he was so evidently possessed with 
uncontrollable terror. J remember how his com- 
panion remarked grimly that he had been afraid 
lest the lad’s chattering teeth should alarm the 
enemy! Next night, when he heard that another 
party was being sent out, the boy-officer, as pale 
as death, came and asked the captain to allow him 
to go. His senior remonstrated and spoke kindly 
of his conduct on the previous night. “ Yes,” said 
the lad, “ but I want to get used to it, Sir, and I 
want to conquer myself.” 

Now, it meant nothing—sometimes only a joke 
—for many a strong-nerved man to crawl through 
that slime in No-man’s Land. But what did it 
mean for this boy, with his high-strung tingling 
nerves? I hold that you can estimate his act only 
when you remember what he was thinking! The 
state of that lad’s mind put the sheer courage of 
his act on a plane totally different from anybody 
else. So much of our average courage is of the 
animal. ‘This was of the soul! 


158 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


I am certain that we can only understand the 
agony of Jesus, when we relate it to what He 
thought of Himself. ‘That alone gives us any 
glimpse of His mental and spiritual debate. 

Many another man has gone to a cross without 
the quiver of an eyelid. Why not Jesus? One of 
the two thieves on the cross joked and swore. 
Why not Jesus? 

Why should He be lying on the ground as 
twisted as any of these gnarled olive trees them- 
selves, with strong cries breaking from His heart? 

The truth is,—it is the only thing that explains 
the scene—Jesus regarded Himself in a unique 
way, a ransom for many. He read an unutterable 
meaning into His own sacrifice. For He regarded 
Himself, in His death, as carrying the sins of the 
world, and as being identified with His burden. 
He who knew no sin was made sin. And in His 
own mind, it is the thought of the sin of the world 
that breaks Him down. ‘That He—the Son of 
Man—should die—thus—for that! A cross— 
for that! 

Nevertheless, Thy will be done. 


IV 


In the light of this—as I think of this—I can 
have a glimpse, though I cannot express it, of 
what passed through the Saviour’s mind, as He 
lay that night amid the olive trees. I can see a pure 
and stainless soul: Himself clear of sin: Himself 


—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoeoeoEeEeeEeeEE——————————————————— ey 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 159 


hating sin: yet giving Himself for sin: to bring 
men to God. It is not only that He is going to 
die, but to die thus and for this end, that constitutes 
the agony of Jesus. 

When He had given Himself, when He had 
fought through the storm and brought His will to 
the service of God, the anguish passed clean out of 
His heart. In one view, this is the most amazing 
fact in Christ’s life. He was heaped with con- 
tumely and pain and desolation: He was scourged 
and ridiculed: He was crowned in ribald mockery. 
Yet these last few hours are the most serene of His 
ministry. Never was His majesty so supreme as 
during these Court scenes. I cannot explain it. 
Can it be explained? I do not know whether I 
wish it explained. 

Some of you, puzzled with the agony of this 
Garden scene, may insist, ‘ Why did this anguish 
never return to Him amid all the gathered abomi- 
nations He suffered afterwards?” 

I have told you that I do not know. If I were 
to venture one explanation which has helped my 
own soul, it would be this:—a cross once gladly 
accepted ceases to bring pain. In God’s will, He 
found God’s peace. 


With a new and strange light of conquest on 
His face, Jesus looked up. 

There through the twisted trunks of the trees, 
He saw a flare of swaying torches and the glitter 


160 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 


of spears. Judas with his motley band! Judas 
who of old knew this quiet retreat and remembered 
how the Master loved its spangled shade! Judas 
who had lain with Him only yesterday among 
the olives! 

Coming to the sleeping disciples—alas! for the 
third time—Jesus touched them quietly and said, 
“It is enough. The hour is come. Lo, he that 
betrayeth me is at hand.” This is a mystery of 
beautiful composure and quiet faith. 

And so, having fought His battle and settled 
His dilemma, He walked forward, with a con- 
trolled soul, to meet Judas and death. 

Poor Judas! 


Into the woods my Master went, 

Clean forspent, forspent. 

Into the woods my Master came, 

Forspent with love and shame. 

But the olives they were not blind to Hém, 
The little gray leaves were kind to Him: 
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 

When into the woods He came. 


Out of the woods my Master went, 

And He was well content. 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame, 

When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 
From under the trees they drew Him last: 
°Twas on a tree they slew Him—last 

When out of the woods He came. 


X 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


—>—]O speak or not to speak? 
fj ay That last crowded day, with its 
Su WER swarming audiences, seemed to offer 
FEES Jesus a unique chance. He had already 
wrought some arresting deeds in Jerusalem; and 
now His capture had raised interest in Him to the 
highest pitch, The Halls of Judgment and the 
open Forum were alike packed with greedy listen- 
ers, keen to know the charges brought against Him 
and as keen to hear His defence. 
This was a great final chance. 
Would He take it? 






On the one hand, here at last were the real lead- 
ers of the people, the great men in high authority. 
He was now face to face with the men who wielded 
social and religious power. The whole Sanhedrin, 
gathered in mass, was before Hm. Surely an un- 
paralleled occasion for stating His case and defin- 
ing His startling claims! 

On the other hand, here were Pilate and Herod, 
whom He had now an opportunity to impress. At 
least, they were open-minded men without any of 
the inherited bias of the priests. They would 

161 


162 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


weigh up the charges in all fairness, and give 
His claims a just and impartial hearing. Why 
should Jesus not use this last momentous chance 
for a full statement of His mission? His judges 
might be unimpressed: they might even sneer: 
but He could at least deliver His soul of its 
burden. If He declared His message the issue 
lay with them. 

And between these two extremes, there stood the 
mass of the people gathered from every available 
quarter of the Jewish world. During this Passover 
time there were thousands of pious pilgrims from 
the four corners of the globe. ‘They had heard 
flavoured tales of this man’s words and works; 
and they would gladly avail themselves of an oppor- 
tunity to see and hear Him. The fact that the 
whole atmosphere was electric would be wholly in 
His favour. He might now deliver Himself of His 
message with the abandon of a martyr. 

Amartyr! . . . Inany case, have not martyrs 
always used these last dramatic moments for some 
great declaration? Even as they stood among the 
licking flames, they have eased their souls by a final 
proclamation of the truth. 

Although He should be condemned, should not 
Jesus tell this cosmopolitan crowd, fully and boldly, 
that He was come from God? What an audience 
to address, even though they should batter Him 
down for blasphemy! 

To speak or not to speak? 


THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 163 


I 


How did He settle this dilemma? 

They brought Him first, before dawn, to Annas. 

This aged man, ex-High Priest, had never seen 
or heard Jesus. He had been for long “ the power 
behind the throne”: and what he could not effect 
by official power, he effected by unofficial intrigue. 
If He could impress Annas, Jesus might do won- 
derful work. For this old priest could make and 
unmake people: and his word was a thing of power. 
According to our records, he seemed anxious to 
investigate and understand the prisoner. 

Would Jesus avail Himself of this chance? 

We read, for instance, that Annas questioned 
Jesus regarding “‘ His doctrine and His disciples.” 
This was a subject, surely, which would appeal to 
Jesus. His doctrine—just to tell this priest of all 
the truth of His heart, to unload His soul of its 
burden, and to expound the grace of His message. 

I know that in countless other instances 
when people came to Him enquiring about His 
doctrine, His eyes lit up with eagerness. He opened 
His heart and emptied it of its deepest secrets. So 
fully, so gladly. a 

Annas questioned Him regarding His doctrine.” 

We read that He refused to answer him directly 
but referred him to the testimony of others. | 

Why? 


They took Him afterwards to Caiaphas, High 


Priest of the time, son-in-law of Annas. ‘This man 
was the actual head of the Jewish Church govern- 
ment. If the priesthood represented anything of 
God, this man represented the priesthood. He 
had around him the whole Sanhedrin of wise 
men who governed the church. This was truly 
the Jewish parliament : and it offered Jesus a unique 
opportunity. 

We know that He answered some of the High 
Priest’s questions: but there are certain of His 
silences before this man that are difficult to 
understand. 

When the witnesses, for instance, had stated 
their lying case against Him, Caiaphas asked Jesus 
if He had anything to say. “ Answerest thou 
nothing?” the High Priest cried. “‘ What is it 
that these witness against thee?” 

“ But He held His peace and answered nothing.” 

Why? 


They brought Him next to Pilate, the Roman 
Ruler. 

The charge now was one of death, and the death- 
sentence lay in the hands of this man alone. He 
was a Roman: and as a Roman, he was trained in 
the principles of justice. It was a proud boast, 
fully justified, that one might expect a fair hearing 
and an honest pronouncement in a Roman court. 
This was one of the glories of the great empire. 

Perhaps, this was the chance for which 


THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 165 


Jesus was waiting? He may certainly speak here 
without fear or favour. 

We read that Pilate asked Him, “ Whence art 
thou?” Again he asked, “‘ Hearest thou not how 
many things these witness against thee?” 

“But Jesus yet answered him nothing: so that 
Pilate marvelled.” 

Why? 


In the midst of the trial, when Pilate over- 
heard the chance word “ Galilee,’ he sent Jesus to 
Herod, the ruler of Galilee, who was then in 
Jerusalem. No doubt, the Roman Procurator 
adopted this device in the vain hope of ridding 
himself of the puzzle of this man’s judgment. It 
would be a wonderful way out of an awkward busi- 
ness, if only Herod would take the affair in hand. 
Perhaps he might! 

If ever a man was glad to see Jesus, it was 
Herod. We read that “ when Herod saw Jesus, he 
was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him 
of a long season, because he had heard many things 
of him: and he hoped to have seen some miracle 
done by him.” Surely this offered a wonderful 
opportunity for Jesus! A man unprejudiced by 
Jewish bias, full of natural expectation and keen 
curiosity, trained in Greek ways and with that 
fine “ latitude” of the Greek mind. A King, more- 
over, with his court about him,—a chance in a 
million. . . . We read that Herod “ questioned 


166 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


with Him in many words.” The suggestion under- 
lying the phrase is that he sought to draw Jesus 
out in diverse ways. Question after question! 

“ But He answered him nothing.” 

Stern stony silence. A mute Christ. 

Why? 


IT 


This is a strange picture of Jesus. It makes me 
afraid. An austere, silent, judging Christ. He 
stands there before these questioning men like a 
statue. Is it possible that some day when I speak 
to Him, “questioning with Him in many words,” 
He may be as stonily silent? 

What accounts for it? 


I cannot help remembering another and brighter 
picture of my Lord. I see countless seeking souls 
flocking to Him in distress. They lay their vague 
needs before Him, their sins, their sorrows, their 
fears, their doubts. He welcomes every case so 
genuinely, and He deals with each in unexampled 
courtesy and grace. Not one of His suppliants 
. departs disappointed. He seems indeed to labour 
and agonise to make Himself plain and clear to the 
simplest or most darkened mind. If they seek Him, 
He as surely seeks them! 

I know, further, that the reason of this present 
silence cannot be that these men were sinners. He 
welcomed sinners: He loved sinners: He sought 


THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 167 


sinners. His enemies nicknamed Him “ The 
Friend of Sinners,” a nickname that is now our 
glory. That Woman at the Well was a sinner; 
yet He strove with infinite patience to make the 
way plain for her puzzled and stupid mind. 
Zaccheus was a sinner; yet He charmed Zaccheus 
with His unexpected and overwhelming kindness. 
Mary Magdalene was a sinner; yet He gave her 
what all men denied her, the forgiving grace of 
God and the friendship of His own respect. 


When these notable men spoke to Him, why was , 


He silent? With this unique chance of a great 
declaration before the assembled people, why should 
He answer nothing? 
To speak or not to speak? Which would He do? 
But He held His peace. 


If 


I can only judge of the debate in His heart by 
the debate that might have been in my own. I 
should have argued something like this:—Here is 
my last great chance. These gathered expectant 
masses. These notable men. A final declaration 
of my message, though I should die for it. A great 
proclamation of God. A martyr’s last confession. 
Then if need be, the fire! 

Why was He silent? 


1. A broken heart? 
Those who say this forget that He was not 


168 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


wholly silent. He answered some questions before 
His varied judges with spirit and fire. Indeed, He 
Was never more conscious of power and His own 
strength than at this moment. ‘ Thou couldest 
have no power against me, except it were given 
thee from above.” That is not the speech of a 
broken heart, but of one that is perfectly sure of 
itself and its own grounds of confidence. If He is 
mute, it is not because He is stunned! 

2. Afraid to commit Himself ? 

As little afraid as ever. ‘“ Art thou the Christ, 
the Son of the Blessed?”” And Jesus said “‘ I am.” 
That is as plain a statement and answer as any man 
could either give or expect. No one need ever 
make any mistake regarding Christ’s view of Him- 
self and His own vocation. He came to tell the 
world who and what He was. He told it. 

3. Disappointed at events? This unexpected 
turn? 

Unless the whole record of His life is sheer in- 
vention, He not only foresaw the end but walked 
towards it. Death did not overtake Him in any 
sense: He met it. I can see no room anywhere 
for believing that Jesus was surprised or astonished 
at the turn of events or at the acts of men. He 
spoke to His disciples in repeated warnings, fore- 
telling His end, lest they might be too astounded 
when the great blow fell. “The Son of Man must 
die.” He knew that, and openly faced it. 

4. Afraid that God had forsaken Him? 


THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 169 


Listen to this quiet word which reveals, more 
than anything, His perfect trust in God. ‘“ Here- 
after shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of 
the power of God.” ‘That is assurance of a su- 
preme order. You may discredit His claim, if you 
care. But at least, it is assurance. Clear con- 
fidence in the Father He loved and served. I do 
the Father’s will! 


IV 

Why did He refuse to answer certain particular 
questions and certain particular men? 

I might have taken this whole occasion as a 
glorious opportunity of open speech. Could there 
be a better starting-point, for instance, than that 
blunt question of Pilate, “ Whence art thou?” 
Why did He pass that by? And the whole inter- 
view with Herod—not one word? As I hinted, 
the record suggests that Herod “fired” questions 
at Him, like shots from a machine-gun. But He 
stood in complete silence. 


I believe that the answer lies in the type of men 
who put the question and the type of question 
they put. 

Let us look at the men. 


Annas. . . . Years ago, when Jesus had been 
a boy playing in the fields and lanes of Nazareth, 
this man had been High Priest. He was a man of 


L700 NO ee DLE Me ORS LENGE 


singular power and as singular ruthlessness. For 
a discreditable act, as haughty as it was cruel, he 
had been deposed. But though thus deposed and 
discredited, he had remained, by intrigue and wire- 
pulling, the secret power behind the throne. He 
had successfully manoeuvred four of his sons into 
the High-priesthood, and the present High Priest, 
Caiaphas, was his son-in-law. Thus by his arti- 
fices, he had made the High-Priesthood a family 
preserve! | 

He was wise enough to know that it was not the 
nominal power but the real power that mattered. 
If he was now old in years, he was older in cun- 
ning. He had shown himself a man without 
scruple or conscience, a political adventurer more 
than a priest of God. It was he and his sons— 
“the booths of the sons of Annas””—who made 
a monopoly of the Temple sacrifices, and coined 
easy money out of its desecration. He filled his 
coffers by turning religion into a “ protected” 
trade. 

His real power was shown now by the simple 
fact that the band of Judas hurried Jesus to him 
first of all. If anybody could worm a charge out 
of this prisoner, Annas could. 

When Jesus met Annas, the two eternal prin- 
ciples of honour and cunning stood face to face. 
This is not really the meeting of two men, but of 
two systems, two ideas of life, and two views of 
God. Christ or Annas? That is the eternal and 


THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 171 


elemental conflict in this world, the spirit of world- 
liness and the spirit of other-worldliness. On the 
one hand, the pure perfect soul of Jesus, as clear 
as that blue sky: on the other hand, that old figure 
huddled in the chair, a heap of wizened cunning, 
who had held to evil power by underground in- 
trigues and deceit. Christ or Annas? 

Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
to say to one like that? 


Caiaphas. . . . Of the breed and kidney of 
Annas. ‘This is the man who lives for ever in 
history as the father of an immortal epigram. 
That epigram is one of the coldest pieces of cyni- 
cism that a callous mind ever coined. It is a heart- 
less tag of political wisdom that reveals the man’s 
coldly brutal heart. “It is expedient,’ he re- 
marked, “‘ that one man should die for the people.” 
This is the true gospel of the scape-goat! What 
does it matter about a poor devil of a scape-goat? 
If the dragon is hungry, throw him a man. It 
keeps the dragon quiet! 

Here is the true apostle of expediency. A man 
who can damn a fellow-man with an epigram. 

Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
to say to one like that? 


Pilate. . . . Poor Pilate! He had been 
reared and trained in the honoured Roman tradi- 
tions of justice and law. Great traditions! Great 


172 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


law, the foundation-stone of all modern law! Yet 
he twisted that iron system like a piece of putty in 
his supple fingers. In his weak and indifferent 
way, he tried to do justly. But justice needs a 
fearless heart and a scorn of consequences! 

Thou art no friend of Caesar, Pilate, if thou let 
this man go free. ‘That settled the matter. The 
threat of complaint! So he delivered Jesus into 
their hands. Then, in a melodramatic pose, he 
washed his own hands. Stained hands, that water 
will not cleanse! 

Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
to say to one like that? 


Herod. . . . The King who was a Greek 
poseur: who in a drunken riot for a drunken vow 
gave John the Baptist’s head to a dancing girl: the 
libertine who at that moment was living in married 
shame: the affected trifler who wanted to see 
Jesus perform a few conjuring tricks, miracles by 
order! . 

Some time ago, Jesus used a phrase about this 
man that is unique in Christ’s vocabulary. As we 
know, our Lord could fearlessly denounce classes 
and sects and parties: He could lash ideas and 
customs. But I only know of one individual soul 
whom He scourged with a phrase. “ That fox,” 
He said of Herod. It is the one instance in the 
New Testament where Jesus slew a man with a 
killing word. 





THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 173 


Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
to say to one like that? 


V 


There are some men to whom Jesus can give 
no answer. Speech would be wasted breath. 
Pearls before swine! His silence is their judgment. 

If we look at those occasions when Jesus was 
silent and at the questions which He refused to 
answer, we may discover some principles that will 
be an encouragement and warning to ourselves. 

It is good for us to see this austere Jesus. 


1. Jesus always refused to answer anyone who 
tried to trap Him. 

We see this in many striking instances. Phari- 
sees, Scribes and lawyers came frequently with 
cunning questions that they might “catch” Him. 
They dug awkward holes, hoping that He might 
trip headlong into one of them. But on every oc- 
casion, “ perceiving their wickedness,’ He turned 
their questions adroitly aside. 

For instance, no one thinks for a moment that 
a man like Annas was in any deep spiritual anxiety 
about Christ’s “doctrine”! His only purpose was 
to entice Jesus to speak that he might pounce like 
a hawk, with his ancient cunning, on any incau- 
tious declaration. Annas was presumably the 
Judge: but he was also the prosecuting cross- 
examiner: and all his apparently interested ques- 


174 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


tions regarding Christ’s doctrine were only sly 
cunning, slyly disguised. He was out for prey! 

And that reference to His disciples! Did he 
wish Jesus to mention their names that he might 
jot them in a book for future use? 

Like this man, Nicodemus once spoke to Jesus 
about His “doctrine.” How gladly, how patiently, 
how graciously, our Lord answered the blundering 
scholar! There was no puzzling detail that He was 
not ready to explain. 

Annas spoke to Jesus about His “ doctrine.” 
Jesus refused any exposition. 

Why? . . . He will never answer patent 
insincerity. 


2. Jesus has no answer for those who pre- 
judge Him. 

He wants us, He asks us, to judge Him. 
“Whom say ye that I am?” He welcomes every 
honest enquiry regarding Himself or His claims. 
But pre-judging is not judging. It argues a closed 
mind and a shut heart. That is fatal. 

Caiaphas, for instance, already knew what he 
was going to do with Jesus. There was no room 
in his mental outlook for such a prophet with 
such a view of God. When Christ looked at 
Him, He was looking at a shut gate, locked and 
barred. In any question Caiaphas might ask, 
there was no real desire for information or en- 
lightenment. Jesus had been “ judged” already, 


a 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE Ls 


judged before He appeared at the bar: and His 
judge was now only angling around for a decent 
pretext of getting Him condemned before Pilate. 
This “trial” before Caiaphas was a mockery of 
the name. 

John the Baptist once judged Jesus hardly. 
From behind his prison bars, he wondered if this 
type of preacher could possibly be the Messiah? 
Jesus answered the disciples of the Baptist in gra- 
cious ways,— Go and tell John.” 

Caiaphas judged Jesus. Jesus was silent. 

Why? . . . He will not answer those who 
condemn Him before He ts heard. 


3. Jesus has no answer for a poseur. 

Affectation of life or beliefi—(if it is ever 
possible to “affect” a belief; some think it is) 
—is at the opposite pole from the natural ways 
and mind of Jesus. He Himself was so per- 
fectly sincere and real and earnest. He preached 
truth, and was truth. And if you will notice, 
the one thing that roused His anger was pre- 
tension and sham. He never had anything to say 
to affectation and unreality. He lashed the Phari- 
sees, not because they were sinners, but because 
they were hypocrites. 

That pseudo-Greek with his affected Hellenism 
would like now to see Jesus and ask Him some 
questions. 

One day a disciple came to Jesus and said, 


176 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


“Master, there are Greeks at the edge of the 
crowd who would like to speak with you.’ We 
read that Jesus was deeply moved and praised 
God! 

Herod, the pseudo-Greek, questioned Him in 
many ways. He was silent! 

Why? . . . We can never see God through 
a@ mask, 


4, Jesus has no answer for a dishonest doubter. 

“Whence comest thou?’ said Pilate. The 
Roman had been told that this prisoner claimed 
to be the Son of God, the Messiah, a King. But 
Pilate, amid his broken and discredited gods, was 
a cynical sceptic. He regarded the “ religious 
Jews” with a sneer. We know that he had no 
place in his thinking either for a life with God 
here or a life with God hereafter. Indeed when 
they spoke of the “sons of the Gods ” at Rome, it 
was generally with a sneer or a snigger. 

When the Woman at the Well spoke to Him 
about the Messiah, Jesus answered simply, “I that 
speak unto thee am He.” She had practically asked 
Him Pilate’s question ‘‘ Whence comest thou?” 
With a magnificent respect for her groping mind, 
He answered her beyond her asking. 

“Whence comest thour” asked Pilate. Jesus 
was silent. 

Why? . . . He deals with doubt, but not with 
dishonest doubt. 


THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE Ut 


5. Jesus has no answer for a man in love with 
his sin. 

That man Herod had imprisoned John because 
of the prophet’s just reproof of his wickedness. 
He hated and feared the preacher who exposed his 
evil. At this moment, unabashed, he was living in 
open shame. He had flaunted his gross conduct in 
the eyes of a scandalised generation. But now that 
he was in Jerusalem, he would gladly see Jesus! 
Perhaps the Nazarene prophet would do some 
miraculous turn like a juggler. At least, he would 
question Him and learn His mind. 

That woman who was a sinner, a soiled rag, 
crept to His feet and washed them with her tears. 
Jesus gave her the benediction of His forgiveness. 

Herod, the sinner, asked Him many questions. 
Jesus looked at him in stony silence. 

Why? . . . He loves sinners, but not sinners 
in love with their sin. 


VI 

This last great chance. 

Will He take it? 

Now they are gathered in their sweltering 
masses, travellers and pilgrims from many lands. 
The leaders of the people are there, the great men 
who now hold His destiny in their hands. Pilate 
and Herod are there. Even if He is to die, perhaps 
He will make a martyr’s last declaration. 

A dramatic message for God! 


178 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 


But He had reasoned with them in full measure 
for three rich years. Going in and out, He had 
preached God’s message and Kingdom, opening up 
God’s word and God’s will. He had refused all 
dramatic and startling methods at the outset of 
His ministry. Could He begin them at the end? 
He wished no message delivered on the crest of 
passion and amid turgid emotion. Amid all this 
fear and passion, He Himself is now the quietest 
and most restrained person in all Jerusalem. For 
after Gethsemane, the strong serene composure 
lasts unbroken to the end. 

The day of speech is past. It is now the day of 
action. 

His words had not won them. 

Perhaps the Great Act would? 


Since then, the Cross has been the world’s silent 
sermon. 





XI 
THE DILEMMA WITH JUDAS 


ais E Judas had a dilemma as to what he 
i ¥| would do with Jesus, Jesus had an 
i) equal dilemma as to what He would do 
=§ with Judas. 

This lost disciple, the enigma of the world, lures 
our thoughts as steel is drawn to a magnet. But 
perhaps in dealing with the intriguing problem of 
his character, we forget the other problem lying 
beside it, as real and insistent—the relation which 
Jesus held to him and his perfidy. 

The whole attitude of our Lord to the traitor is 
worth consideration. We may find it useful to en- 
deavour to look at the question from the angle of 
Jesus, so far as that is possible. 





Why did the Master choose a disciple like 
Judas? 

Was He aware of possible danger in this man? 

When was He aware of danger? 

When He became aware of it, did He treat 
Judas wisely ? 

Was there any way in which the traitor might 
have been saved from himself, in spite of himself ? 

Did Jesus acquiesce in this man’s act as if he 


179 


180 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


were an appointed means, foreordained by fate to 
this perfidy? 

These questions may introduce us to Christ’s 
dilemma. 


J 


To understand Judas in any sense, we dare not 
come to him, as we generally do, with a ready- 
made theory, and then attempt to squeeze the facts 
to suit our theory. That is ruinous with any man, 
but especially with him. Moreover it is not just 
either to Judas or Jesus. In all honesty, we must 
face the facts. The only facts I know of are given 
in the New Testament. 

If we do face these facts, we shall at once rule 
out some fine sweeping judgments. In any case, I 
distrust fine sweeping judgments! Especially about 
complex things like human beings! We cannot 
crush a man’s soul into a generalisation or an 
epigram. 


Some say he was a devil incarnate. 

If this slanders Judas, it slanders Jesus more. Is 
it conceivable that our Lord could have chosen such 
aman for an apostle? If Jesus knowing this had 
called him as a disciple, choosing him, as it were, 
for a predestined instrument, I should have no 
further use for Jesus. | 


Some say he was a misguided saint. 





THE DILEMMA WITH FfUDAS 181 


This view, buttressed by the literary special- 
pleading of De Quincey, is condemned by one 
thing—the facts. It may be generous and beauti- 
fully charitable on our part to picture him as a 
Messianic enthusiast who believed in Jesus and 
only wished to force His hand and make Him 
declare Himself: but it is not true. Unfortu- 
nately, the New Testament presents a different 
picture. 


Some say that he was not normal. 

I wonder what they mean. Is anybody normal? 
Judas was a man who thought and reasoned and 
laughed and sinned like any of us. He had our 
range of possibilities, for good or evil. I have no 
doubt that he had a Mr. Hyde hidden in his Dr. 
Jekyll. But so have I! There can be no doubt 
that he committed his sin, as I do mine, by letting 
the evil within him triumph. 


Some say he was chosen to be the traitor. 

I am sorry for any man’s view of God, who can 
imagine this. That this poor wight was staged 
from all eternity to play the villain—no! God 
does not run His world like that! And if we add 
this taint to Jesus,—what a Jesus! It is a poor 
way to account for Judas by dishonouring Christ. 
A cat playing with a mouse! . . . I know 
enough of the hatred of the priests to be sure that 
Judas, as an instrument for their vengeance, was 


182 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


an accident. They were glad when he came, of 
course. But if he had not come, their hate would 
have devised another means. Hate, like love, has 
“this touch of genius, that it invents its own 
instruments. 


Some say that he was a traitor all the time. 

From start to finish! Jesus chose him honestly: 
but the disciple was dishonest and hypocritical in 
his own heart. . . . Is there not enough against 
this man without this? If we refuse to dishonour 
Jesus, I think we ought equally to refuse to dis- 
honour Judas! . . . Apart from his stern warn- 
ings, it is a remarkable thing that amid the 
opprobrium of the world, Jesus in His subsequent 
dealings treated this man only with an_ over- 
whelming pity! 


II 


What are the facts? 

There are three at least that no fair man ought 
to forget. 

1. Judas chose Jesus. 

He followed Him for one reason only, because 
he Joved His company. Christ attracted him: 
Christ chimed in with all his dreams. We. must 
remember that this disciple was a Jewish national- 
ist,—perhaps the only pure Jew of the twelve: for 
the rest were Galileans. He saw many of his hopes 
focussed in this astounding preacher. He brought 


i a 





THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 183 


his dreaming soul, narrow but dreaming, and laid 
it down at the feet of our Lord. He listened to 
Him: he followed Him: he lived:with Him.., 


That may make the mystery of his resco eMall tt ait 


the deeper in the end. None the less, this is the big 


fact. He chose Jesus! He threw in his lot with , 
Him, from interest and enthusiasm. ‘The prayers — 


of generations seemed to be gathered up in this 
prophet. 

2. Jesus chose Judas. 

This is the bigger fact of the two. Our Lord 
discerned latent possibilities in this man. He had 
the makings of a really great apostle, with dis- 
 tinctive qualities. 

There is no other reason that can account for 
Christ’s choice, unless we are open to harbour un- 
worthy ideas of His selection. This nationalistic 
Jew,—keen, ardent, gifted, passionate—might have 
become one of the foremost of the disciples. Our 
Lord certainly chose him first as a disciple, and 
then as an apostle. That means, after probation, 
experience, and approval! 

* 3. Jesus honoured Judas. 

I said that Judas might have become one of the 
foremost of the apostles. For a time, he actually 
was. He exhibited such marked gifts of adminis- 
tration and organisation that Jesus promoted him 
to be treasurer of His band. This appointment 
meant more in those days than it might mean with 
us. For in the work of such a wandering band as 


“ 


184 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


the disciples, this appointment carried with it all 
the arrangements of organisation, billeting and 
budgeting which such a roving company demanded. | 

There is only one worthy conclusion: Jesus and 
the disciples trusted and honoured Judas. If you 
are able to imagine that our Lord knew this man 
~ to be covetous and weak, and yet gave him an 
office that furnished countless natural opportuni- 
ties for deceit and fraud, I pity you for your view 
of Jesus. For myself, I could not forgive in Him, 
what I could not forgive in any other. 

For the credit of Jesus, there is only one con- , 
clusion from the facts of the case. At this time, 
Judas, the young man of Kerioth, was keen, hon- 
est, capable and brainy. He had gifts and qualities 
that easily singled him out for Christ’s notice, 
Any other theory contradicts the facts, and defames 
our Lord. 


III 
Thackeray remarks that circumstances do not 


| ,change our characters, but only bring out their 


/ latent qualities. 

After the first year of His ministry, circum- 
stances changed with Jesus in a rapid somersault. 

In the first place, the great crowds forsook 
Him, as we saw in the Dilemma of His Popu- 
larity. He Himself broke their foolish attachment 
deliberately. 

Further, His message changed in intensity and 


THE DILEMMA WITH JUDAS 185 


trend. He began to teach the disciples deep and 
hidden things. He openly forecasted the end. 
“The Son of Man must die.” 

Moreover, the opposition and enmity of the 
Ruling Classes deepened and darkened. Any 
chance of a great political and social movement 
receded into the dim background. Jesus centred 
His work chiefly on the training of the Twelve. 
Some of that training seemed bitter and :npalatable 
doctrine. A Messiah on a Cross! 


This change of meaning and emphasis worked 
subtly on the heart of Judas. 

Strong passionate men are often narrow and 
biassed. When such passionate men are disap- 
pointed, they become brooding. Brooding, dis- 
appointed, and disillusioned—it is an easy step to 
hate. We hate the thing that ruins us and breaks 
our hopes. 

When hate enters into a passionate and narrow 
soul, it twists its whole nature. Nothing any 
longer remains sacred. Judas, the nationalist, 
became morose and twisted, morally and _ spirit- 
ually. He felt as if his early hopes—the very 
hopes that had first attracted him to Jesus—had 
been shattered, and his dreams had been ruined. 
He had been made a laughing-stock by this dream- 
ing unpractical idealist of a Christ. . . . Curse 
Him! It was a bitter business. 

The apostle has now become an apostate. He 


186 THE DILEMMA WITH F#UDAS 


harbours a grudge against the innocent cause of his 
own undoing. 

As well make something out of the wreck! He 
put his hand in the bag. 

His twisted cynicism and despair began to be- 
spatter everything: for a soul awry sees every- 
thing awry. He even misread the passionate and 
repentant love of the woman who was a sinner, 
and he decried her enthusiasm as ludicrous and 
wasteful. His excuse for his muttered grumbling 
is only another symptom of his spiritual decay. 
The poor! What was he thinking of 
the poor? | 

His soul died before his body. 


Jesus saw the change gradually. He could see 
it in no other way, for the simple reason that the 
change itself was gradual! The last few months 
ripened the man’s challenging irritation quickly 
into disappointment and moody hate. It was all a 
lost cause! There was no hope for a New Israel 
from an ineffective man like this! He scorned the 
source of his disillusionment, that dreaming, un- 
practical Christ. What a Christ! 


IV 
Whether there had been a Judas or no, Jesus 
knew that the Cross was near. The gathering 
storm was rumbling in the distance, and there were 
black clouds hanging over Jerusalem. Envy, anger, 





THE DILEMMA WITH F¥UDAS 187 


hate among the leaders and priests! If He went 
to Jerusalem, it was a city of fate. Even now, 
they had resolved on His death. 

Judas was an accident, though the Cross was not. 


After the implied reproof in that gracious inci- 
dent of the Repentant Woman, Judas hardened his 
heart. No doubt in his unhealthy brooding state, 
he took the general reproof of Jesus as a personal 
affront. ‘This final scene where Jesus showed the 
love and gentleness of His heart, revealed also the 
kind of Messiah He was, and showed Judas what 
a hopeless and ineffectual person he served. 

Jesus saw this final change, and took His own 
measures. 

Have you ever wondered why our Lord was so 
noticeably “secretive”? about His preparation for 
the Passover Supper? “‘ Where wilt thou that we 
prepare?” His disciples asked Him. He replied, 
“Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there 
shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water: 
follow him into the house where he entereth in.” 

Why all this secret preparation? And against 
whom was it devised? 

Against the Priests? I think not. 

Against Judas? Yes. 

The hour was not yet come. 


For on the previous day, the traitor had stolen 
into Jerusalem. He had sought out the Rulers, in 


188 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


his moody and disillusioned bitterness. Well might 


we believe that they were “glad” when they saw 


him. ‘This man, one of His own disciples, was a 
windfall! He promised to seek a speedy oppor- 
tunity to betray Him, in the absence of the multi- 
tude. Some quiet moment which he, as a disciple, 
could command. 
Thirty pieces of silver! Was that the price they 

put on Jesus? | 

_ Rather, it was the price they put upon Judas! 
\ He could be bought cheap. 


I do not think he really bargained for money. 


-Had he done so, he could have screwed them up | 


so easily to many times the price. They wanted:-to 
be rid of Jesus at any cost. As it was, they bought 
the Master for a slave’s purchase. I think in his 
dark bitterness, Judas would have taken anything 
or nothing. The actual bargain no doubt was sug- 
gested by the Priests. Jt bound the man! 

It is a poor, poor view to think that Judas sold 
Jesus for cash alone. His, like ours, was a com- 
plex soul, and had many motives. If money was 
one thread of the piece, it was only a thread. I 
think that in his sullen anger, he hardly listened to 
the talk of the priests. He nodded his head. What 
did it matter? . . . If money had been his sole 
desire, he would have played for higher stakes: 
and in the end, his money would have satisfied him. 
It always does. People who sell big things for 


« 


THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 189 


blood-money ask big prices: and at the last, their 
money is their solace. It heals regrets. 

But Judas at the end threw the clattering coins 
on the Temple floor. They hurt him like a curse. 
And then his dead body kept his dead soul company. 


After the bargain, he rejoined the circle of 
disciples. With what thoughts—a wolf in sheep’s 
clothing! 

As yet, no one save Jesus suspected the man. 
The others had too much love for Him to believe 
that any of their number could bear such malice. 
As for Judas himself, he kept his own dark coun- 
sel. Secret sin makes all of us accomplished “ 
actors. God alone knows what distorted thoughts 
and obscure motives chased themselves through his 
twisted brain! 

Meanwhile, all through that sacred meal, his 
ears were open wide to catch any hints of plans 
and appointments. Something first-hand for the 
Priests! 

In his brooding and revengeful soul the purpose 
was now so deliberate and sullen, that all Christ’s 
striving could not touch him, It was not the sin 
of one rash moment, quickly done and quickly re- 
gretted. That we could understand and forgive. 
But it sprang from a kind of dour and disappointed 
vengefulness, that watches its chance like a bird 
of prey. 

But unknown to him, other eyes, kindly eyes, 


190 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


were reading his sullen soul. E,ver since that inci- 
dent of the penitent woman who had lavished her 

ointment on the Saviour, Jesus had been watching 
this man with pity and concern. Now, He sees 
that the silent processes have ripened, and_ that 
Judas has cast the die in his own mind. 

It is one thing to be tempted: it is another thing 
to fall. 

Now that he has fallen, now that the temptation 
is accepted, Jesus can deal with him. 


Vv 

How did Jesus deal with him? 

In the first place, all through their long com- 
munion together, He had treated the disciple with 
the same courtesy and favour as He had extended 
to the others. At that time, remember, Judas was 
aman of promise. He was as honourable as his 
own name,—before he ruined that ancient name 
for ever. 

Further, when the crisis came and the mob for- 
sook Him, Judas was equally in the counsels of 
Jesus. Our Lord must have seen that some at 
least of His disciples were tempted to leave Him, 
for He asked “ Will ye also go away?” But in 
the end, Judas stuck with the rest and remained in 
the inner circle of twelve, to whom the Lord 
opened up the deep things of His ministry. 

Then towards the end, when the time was ripe, 
the Master began to speak more pointedly of His 


THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 191 


death. ‘This definite acceptance of the cross was 
the last straw for Judas. He had no use for a 
Christ like that. The other disciples, equally with 
him, had possessed crude ideas of the Messiah. 
“Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right 
hand and one on the left hand, in thy glory.” But 
Judas was a Jew, a passionate loyalist Jew, from 
the Judean village of Kerioth. His expectations 
had been deeper and more bigoted. When Christ 
proved a broken reed for their narrow desires, the 
others by this time had formed a personal attach- 
ment to Jesus that took the place of their vanished 
hopes. A love for the Master, a real friendship, 
an undefined belief in Him apart from His pro- 
gramme! But Judas evidently had nothing of this. 
When his hopes collapsed, there was no personal 
love to take their place and hold his loyalty. He 
lost himself in his own disappointed bitterness. 


How did Jesus treat this new development ? 

By open and covert warnings that would have 
touched and turned another man! . . . Youask, 
“Why nothing stronger? Were there no means 
more effective than this?” 

The only method that Christ ever took with any 
soul, Judas or another, was reasonable spiritual 
persuasion. He laid Himself and His message in 
the hands of men, and left the decision with them. 
If influence, warning, and appeal could do nothing 
to turn Judas from his treachery, Christ could use 


192 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


nothing else This was in line with the strict 
spiritual programme defined in the desert. 

He might have cut him adrtft. 

He might have disnussed him from the company. 
’ He might have used force and restraint. 

But none of these was really possible, if Jesus 
were to be true to His own ideal. You may urge 
that He knew the character of Judas and that 
Satan was seeking him! But He knew the char- 
acter of Peter, and that Satan was seeking him! 
In one sense, Peter’s character was a more danger- 
ous and explosive thing than that of Judas. Should 
Jesus therefore have cut Peter adrift, lest the lower 
elements in him triumphed? 

So far, the point to remember about Judas,—as 
_ it is the point to remember about any man—is that 

up to the last he was saveable, as saveable as Peter. 
And if anything could save him, it was the gracious 
Winning and appealing conduct of Jesus, as shown 
during these last days. That saved Peter: and it 
could have saved him. 


VI 


Than Christ’s conduct during the Supper itself 
could anything be more winning? 

To begin with, there was that silent sermon in 
drama, the Washing of the disciples’ feet. If ever 
vaulting ambition and angry passion were rebuked, 
it was there. If ever the nobility of lowly service 
was evidenced, it was there. But more! For while 


THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 193 


He was engaged in this menial office—a great 
rebuke to all the contentious disciples—He gave 
Judas a strong personal warning. As He washed 
their feet, He said, “ Ye are all clean.” Then He 
added, “ But not all.” I think He said these words 
as He was on His knees before Judas. “ But not 
all.’ At least we can be quite certain that nobody 
but Judas would understand the meaning of these 
cryptic words. It was Christ’s kindness of heart 
that purposely made them cryptic. Had he been 
impressionable, Judas would have felt the sword 
‘beneath the velvet. 

Would it influence him, if he knew that Jesus 
knew? It would influence you and me! 


This passed. 

Then Jesus tried him from another angle. 

We read that as He pondered on all that lay 
before Him—the hour was gathering fast—His 
soul became deeply moved. He saw a shadow of 
the cross athwart the table. Out of His emotion, 
forgetting Himself and remembering the hapless 
traitor—indeed, speaking to none but the traitor— 
He said, “ Verily, verily I say unto you, that one 
of you shall betray me.” Could warning and 
pleading be plainer? 

Yes, it could. 

For He turned at once and made the spiritual 
issues clear. ‘‘ Woe to that man by whom the Son 
of Man is betrayed.” And then, like a knell, 


194 THE DILEMMA WITH $UDAS | 


“ Good were it for that man if he had never been — 
born.” . . . If Judas resists pleading, he shali — 
at least know the bitter fruit of his acts. This is 
the nearest approach to a warning curse that Jesus 
ever uttered! 

Perhaps He can yet frighten Judas from his evil? 

In Christ’s gentle way, everything was made — 
abundantly plain to Judas, but kept delicately cov- 
ered from the others. So covered indeed that it 
threw the group into blank amazement! They 
even began to wonder if they themselves, in spite 
of themselves, could ever betray Him. 

Urged by the others, John, lying at Christ’s 
right hand, leant back his head till it touched 
Christ’s breast and whispered, “ Lord, who is it? ” 
And Jesus whispered back, “ He to whom I shall 
give the sop.” . . . When He had dipped the 
sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot the son of 
Simon. 

I ask you to remember that this conversation 
had been whispered. Otherwise, there were some 
hot souls there—such a fire-brand as Peter—who 
would never have let Judas leave that room alive! 

It was whispered. 

Judas knew nothing of the private meaning of 
that sop. Except this—that it was the sop of 
honour! ‘The others, jealous children, would 
glower at him when Jesus thus honoured the man 
of Kerioth. This indeed was the mark of the 
highest distinctionn—that the host of a feast 





THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 195 


should single out the “great guest’’ and honour 
him thus. 

What did this mean? 

Remember the by-play between Jesus and the 
traitor. Had the heart of Judas been less set and 
less hard, he would have seen that the Lord, though 
knowing his treachery, was yet willing to receive 
him back, and let by-gones be by-gones. This sop 
of honour, if we may use the term, is Christ’s 
great “bid” for the loyalty of Judas! 

It was a silent appeal to honour. 


But all that was puzzling Judas at the moment 
was just the remaining shred of doubt whether 
Jesus really did know that he was planning treach- 
ery. Did He know? Or was He only talking in 
general terms? 

Did He know? 

So taking his courage in both hands, he resolved 
to settle the doubt. Being the treasurer of the party 
and one in high honour, he was seated near the 
Master. Leaning forward, he asked in an under- 


_ tone, drowned by the general heated conversation, 


. 
: 





the same question that the others had asked. 
“Rabbi, is it I?” Jesus turned to him and an- 
swered, also in a whisper, “ Thou hast said.” 

His villainy was known. 

Would this stop him, if he saw that Christ knew 


and yet forgave? It would break me down. 


It failed. 





196 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


A few moments’ silence! Jesus was giving him 
his last chance. ‘These few moments are as dra- 
matic as any in human history. 


Suddenly Jesus turned. 

The first note of sternness creeps into His voice. 
Aloud now, that all might hear Him, He says to 
Judas, “That thou doest, do quickly.” If your 
heart is set on this, I cannot stay you. Do your 
heart’s errand! 

The innocent disciples, unconscious of that per- 
sonal dialogue between Jesus and Judas, imagined 
that the Lord had given him, as treasurer, some 
command or duty—perhaps bread for tomorrow, 
or alms for the poor. . . . Otherwise, I repeat, 
with such a fire-brand as Peter, Judas might not 
have left the room alive! 

It is plain, I trust, that Jesus in His love for 
Judas strove with him in searching spiritual ways 
for his own soul. More He could not do. So far 
as force was concerned, from the earliest day, He 
had resolved to be as clay in the potter’s hand. 
Had He resorted to strong ways, now or later in 
Pilate’s court, He might, in His own words, have 
called down hosts from above. But if He had done 
that, He would have succumbed to the precise 
Temptation which He had once settled in the 
Desert. Force for His own ends! 

Thus, to all spiritual striving, Judas was cold as 
iron. If we re-read these scenes, we shall see how 





THE DILEMMA WITH ¥UDAS 197 


our Lord tried to touch and win him in every loving 
way. But at the end, when tenderness had done 
its work in vain, there was only one thing left to 
say, “ That thou doest, do quickly.” 
God cannot save a man who will not be saved. 
He that will damn himself, let him be damned. 


VII 


This is the defeat of Jesus,—a soul He could 
not win. 

Then came the dramatic departure. Judas rose 
from his couch and walked from the room. The 
door slammed. I can hear it now. “ And it was 
night.” Night around him, and a darker, deeper 
night within. 


Knowing that Jesus was going to the Garden, 
the traitor went post-haste to the priests, and from 
them collected a rabble of retainers and soldiers to 
effect the arrest. Even now they feared this man 
of power! So they came with swords and staves to 
beat Him down! 

But as they trudged through the silent streets, 
someone called out in the darkness, “Stay! Stay! 
How shall we know this Nazarene when we meet 
Him? None of us has ever seen Him face to face.” 

This was indeed a knotty point. 

“ How shall we know Him? It would be tragic, 
after all this preparation, if we blundered in the 
dark and brought back the wrong prisoner!” 


198 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 


Judas thought quickly. 

Holding up his hand, he stopped the straggling 
mob. “None of you know this man: and the 
night is dark. When we draw near, I shall give 
you a sign. Listen! The man whom you must 
seizeis . . . the man whom I will kiss.” 

They nodded their heads in the darkness, and 
passed the word along the line. 

“Tt is the man whom he will kiss.” 





XII 
THE LAST DILEMMA 


NG MUR Lord’s life is like a sublime piece of 
| music through which, as a motif, there 
; runs one steady haunting refrain. It is 
AS | always there, and most there when un- 
Boat That refrain may be expressed in these 
words, “If only men would believe in Me! If 
only men would accept me as Lord and King!” 
We know that this was Christ’s passion and 
prayer. A personal faith was the one claim He 
made upon men, all men. Wherever He found 
such faith, He rejoiced openly. Wherever it was 
lacking, the very virtue seemed to dry up within 
Him. He could do nothing without our faith. 





On the one hand, we remember with what pecu- 
liar joy He greeted any exhibition of human faith, 
especially if it came from unexpected and unlikely 
quarters. He praised that Roman centurion be- 
cause the man’s trust was deeper than any He had 
found even in Israel. He healed that woman who 
crept forward through the jostling crowd and 
touched the hem of His garment, because though 
her faith may have been ignorant and superstitious, 
it was yet deep and real It is a joy to know that 


199 


200 THE LAST DILEMMA 


amid many rebuffs from those who should have 
received Him with enthusiasm but who only re- 
garded Him with slanting eyes, He had gracious 
instances of adoring trust among simple people that 
gave Him abiding happiness. We praise God for 
all those,—often humble souls—who brought joy 
to His heart. 

On the other hand, we remember how it hurt, 
worse than the thrust of a knife, when the people 
who should have welcomed His as a friend and 
ally, treated Him with doubt and scorn. 

The official leaders of religion, for instance— 
the Priests and the Scribes—treated Him as an 
outcast, and thereby gave Him His deepest pain. 
“He came unto His own, and His own received 
Him not.” He might have expected better things 
from these people of privilege. But privilege may 
be as much of a curse, as a blessing. Where He 
might have expected faith, He found only narrow 
bitterness and vicious hostility. 

In the same way, in His own village and coun- 
tryside, He could do nothing notable. His towns 
men considered that they knew Him too well to 
believe that He could be a prophet! “ He did not 
many mighty works there, because of their unbe- 
lief.” I do not think we realise sufficiently how 
much His rejections must have hurt His soul. We — 
can only realise this by seeing how openly He re- 
joiced when He met faith in unexpected quarters. 
The one side throws light on the other. 


a 
THE LAST DILEMMA 201 


Thus, from first to last, Christ’s dream was to 
awaken and command faith,—faith in His message 
and Himself. If only He could win their faith! 
That is the refrain that runs through His life and 
ministry. 

This was such a ruling passion in His heart that 
He had been tempted at times to use less worthy 
means to secure it. That bitter scene in the Desert 
is sufficient proof of this. There, in contest with 
His own soul, He had debated various possibilities 
how He might attract and grip the faith of His 
generation. How could He doit? He felt that it 
was almost worth anything to secure this. 

In the end, as we know, He settled His own 
God-like course. He chose to honour both God and 
man by laying God’s truth plainly before man’s 
reason; and on the other hand, He refused to use 
any charlatan methods that would either dominate 
or paralyse human faith or assent. 

But it is good to remember that He had been 
deeply tempted to win this faith at any cost! His 
victory in the Temptation lay in His glorious de- 
cision that some costs were too dear! 

If men would only believe in Him? 


I 


He is now on the Cross. 
We do not grasp some of the deeper meanings 


of this scene, if we do not remember that the same 


refrain runs through it. “If men would only be- 


202 THE LAST DILEMMA 


lieve.”’ That is as much the refrain of His death 
as the refrain of His life. In fact, as we know 
now, the cross was His last bid for human love 
and faith. 

They had taken Him in the Garden by the arti- 
fice of Judas. They had led Him away like a 
captured criminal. They had tried Him,—if you 
may call it a trial—before the High Priests, the 
Sanhedrin, and Pilate. In the end, the Roman 
Ruler, badgered from pillar to post and threatened 
with vindictive complaints to Caesar, had weakly 
given in to the clamour of the mob. He had deliv- 
ered Him into their hands. A sport for ribaldry! 


It was an age that knew little mercy. It was an 
age so little disciplined or law-abiding, that it pur- 
posely invented excruciating public forms of death 
to act as a restraining fear upon the people. Per- 
haps we wince at their barbaric ways, and wonder 
if they are bone of our bone. But it is not many 
years, is it, since we too used to hang our highway- 
men on a gibbet at the cross-roads? Also for a 
warning to evil-doers! 

I do not speak of the pain of the Cross. I think 
we dwell too much on the pain of the Cross. Cer- 
tain Churches at least do... . As we have seen 
in an earlier chapter, our Lord’s greatest pain was 
not physical, but mental and spiritual. It was the 
mental pain of such a death, for such an end, that 
tore His heart. From the angle of mere pain, 





So ae a S a ae eS - = 





THE LAST DILEMMA 203 


many a martyr has suffered more. But no one has 
ever suffered the spiritual agony of Jesus when He 
gave Himself a ransom for many. 


“They that passed by reviled Hum, wagging 
their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the 
Temple.” 

It is not for us to judge the morals of a past 
age by the morals of our own. Therefore we must 
accept without undue comment the remark in our 
records that they mocked and gibed at Him on His 
throne of a cross. It is easy for us, reared in 
gentler days only made possible by Jesus, to call 
them devils incarnate, and to gasp at their depravity 
and barbarism. But if we live in a changed world 
today, with purer mercy, the credit is not ours. 
The credit belongs eternally to that silent figure on 
the cross. For in deeper ways than we know, His 
death has been the life of the world. 

One of these gibes, now historic, must have 
struck Jesus worse than a blow. ‘The Chief 
Priests—men of privilege but not above the level 
of the other jesters—cried out, “Let Christ, the 
King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that 
we may see and believe.” 

“That we may believe.” It is His own old re- 
frain echoed mockingly. 

How it must have hurt! 


When Jesus heard it, I can imagine that He shut 


204 THE LAST DILEMMA 


His eyes and pictured Himself for a moment back — 
in the Desert. He could readily recall the scene 
of agony: it was graven on His soul. Again He 
was at the threshold of His work, with the door 
swinging open. He was beating out its aims and 
objects for God and Himself. Satan whispered in 
His ear, “ That pinnacle, Jesus! Climb it, and 
throw yourself from the top. God will surely hold 
you up! When you drop lightly on your feet, safe 
and unshaken, you will dazzle the people and com- 
mand their instant belief. The pinnacle, Jesus! If 
you do that, you will win their belief in you, as 
Messiah.” 

That they may believe! 

The point and appeal of that old temptation 
had lain here, that it offered Him straightaway 
a world that believed in Him and His claims. If 
He could start with the people’s faith, what 
might He not do? The agony of the temptation 
lay in this that though it was the lower road, 
it seemed to lead more immediately to the high 
goal. It chimed in with His own dreams—a 
world that believed in Him, and a world that He 
could therefore redeem. At that moment in the 
Desert, He wondered if any means that could 
bring the world to God might not be justified. He 
would have done anything—almost anything—to 
win their belief. 

If only He could get the world to believe in His 
message! 


THE LAST DILEMMA 205 


The scene has changed. It is no longer the 


Desert but the Cross. Yet the temptation is 


the same. 

Listen! 

“ Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from 
the cross, that we may see and believe.” 

As these words reached His ears, they were more 


than a cruel taunt. They suggested, in a flashing 
_ temptation, a last glorious possibility! Here in this 


dramatic moment, surrounded by these gaping 
crowds, He was offered a unique chance. If by 
God’s great power He now chose to avail Himself 
of the resources of Almighty God, He might use 
this occasion to win an unimpeachable belief. 
Hereafter, no one could ever deny that He was the 
messenger of God! If the Father were now made 
manifest in this startling and convincing fashion, 
every soul now before Him would be struck dumb 
with awe and holy fear. God would be glorified. 
God’s power and truth would be established. Jesus 
would now command the adoring faith of a smit- 
ten world. 

I said an unimpeachable belief. But would it be 
unimpeachable ? 

Would they believe if He worked this last dra- 
matic dénouement? Even at the last, would they 
believe? 

Perhaps . . . if He . . . what a unique 
chance! 

It is the old temptation in a more dramatic form. 


206 THE LAST DILEMMA — 


X. 


And remember, Satan can often speak by the mouth 
of a High Priest. 


II 


I hold that this presents us with Christ’s last 
dilemma. The appeal of it lies in that mocking cry 
“That we may believe.” 

What would He do? 


On the one hand, we have His own conviction 
that He actually possessed all the power of God. 
If you care, you may deny that He had this power: 
but you cannot deny that He believed He had it. 
Even in the Court-room before Pilate, He stated 
that He could call down, if need be, all the hosts of 
God to His service. He was conscious of God’s 
peculiar power within Him, in ways that we can- 
not grasp. Whatever He believed, He believed at 


least in His own power. 


Suppose for a moment—do not think it wild or 
ridiculous—suppose for a moment, that Christ did 
call upon God. Suppose—‘ that we may believe” 
—He claimed God’s majesty in awful ways, and 
implored: God, to whom all things are possible, to 
focus in Him at that moment all the mysterious 
spiritual resources that we feel around us. Suppose 
He did summon the eternal might of eternal God 
to His side in this dread moment! 

“Come down, that we may believe,” they cried. 
If, as He Himself trusted, Christ could really 





| 
| 
| 
} 
| 


a  ,,,,,,,,,,,,, —— 
THE LAST DILEMMA 207 


“ command ” God and could effect by God’s power 
what we foolishly call a miracle—a name that only 
cloaks our ignorance of unseen things—this was a 
dramatic moment. The plea was surely one that 
would touch and draw our Lord’s heart. A dream 
of a believing world! 

Suppose then for one fierce moment that the 
mocking taunt of the Priests touched Him! 
Suppose that He summoned the Almighty Power 
of God! Suppose that He came down from 
the cross. 

“That we may believe.” 


The taunt has hardly passed from their lips. 
The jeer is still twisting their faces. 

Then the great thing happened! 

They looked. . . . Amazement carved the 
jeer into frozen wrinkles on their faces, like the 
grin on a gargoyle. Their eyes stood glazed with 
terror. 

The cross was empty. 

O God, the cross was empty! 

And there beside them, with the red holes in His 
hands, stood the man whom they had mocked. 


“That we may believe,” they had said. 

Would they have believed? ‘The only conceiv- 
able motive that might have influenced Christ’s 
heart was His desire to convince the world. Would 
He have convinced the world? 


208 THE LAST DILEMMA 


1. In the first place, the Priests would not have 
believed. 

Neither would I. 

They and I might have believed that Jesus was 
a man of magic and could do marvellous things: 
but His descent from the cross would not have 
helped either them or me one whit to believe in His 
essential message, that God is love. 

It would have proved, I admit, that God is 
power! But we knew that already. The whole 
visible world is a testimony to that. The stars in 
their courses: the swinging spheres: the mystery 
of growth: the miracle of life: if any man can live 
amid these things and not know that God is power, 
he is a fool. We do not need an outré thing like 
this descent from the cross to publish or prove the 
might and the majesty of God. 

But nothing of Christ’s essential message about 
God’s heart and God’s redemption could have been 
proved by any display of magical force. Indeed, 
it would have been the reverse. He would have 
dazzled the people: He would have struck them 
stupid with gross astonishment: He would have 
had them gaping open-mouthed at Him as if He 
were a freak. But no juggler’s trick would ever 
induce any sane man to believe in the real mes- 
sage of the heart of God. There is only one 
thing in this world that can prove and establish 
love. And that is sacrifice! It is the only proof 
of love. As He hung there on the cross He was 


THE LAST DILEMMA 209 


proving it now. To descend would have been to 
disprove it! 
That is why He died! 





Long ago, in speaking to the people, Jesus had 
-answered His own dilemma. 
He had been telling them a story of a rich man 
-and a poor man called Lazarus. When the rich 
man died, he descended into Satan’s kingdom. In 
the story, Jesus tells how this rich man besought 
Abraham to send a messenger to earth to warn the 
man’s brothers, lest they should come to an end 
like his. Send some one that they may be fore- 
warned in time, and may repent and _ believe. 
(“That they may believe.”) But Abraham re- 
plied, “They have Moses and the prophets—all 
that anybody else has!—let them hear them.” But 
the man said, “ Nay, father Abraham: but if one 
went to them from the dead, they will repent.” 
And Abraham said unto him, “If they hear not 
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded, though one rose from the dead.” 
Aye,, though one descended from the cross! 
Even that would not lead them to believe! 
2. Miracles do not establish truth. ae) 
That is why Jesus never wrought them, except 
for sheer mercy’s sake. All the miracles in the 
world would not have proved Him to be the mes- 
senger of God’s love. For all that a miracle proves 


210 THE LAST DILEMMA 


is itself, nothing more. It is pitiable to see how 
some people quote the miracles of Jesus as if they 
proved that He is the messenger of God’s truth. 
The miracles do not prove Him: He proves the 
miracles. 

For instance, a man makes a statement to me 
which he sees that I do not credit. Then he 
adds, “In order to prove that what I say is true, 
I shall now work a miracle. I shall put up my 
right hand, and catch hold of that star. Then 
when I have shown you it lying, nestling like an 
egg, in my hand, I shall whistle it back to its old 
place. There! Now, when you have seen that, 
do you believe me? Do you believe that what I 
say is true?” 

And all I could do would be to shake my head 
and say, “ My dear sir, though you could juggle 
with a million suns and stars, that would not prove 
that what you say is true. It only proves that you 
are a juggler. That is all!” 

A thing can only be proved true in one way— 
by being proved true! A man might work a thou- 
sand miracles, and yet be a first-class liar. 

And Christ’s message of the love of the redeem- 
ing heart of God would not have been established 
though He had descended from the cross ten times 
instead of once. It would have proved—what I 
knew already—that God holds all power in His 
hands. But it would not have proved that He has 
all love in His heart! 


Ce I ee ee ee ee ee 








THE LAST DILEMMA 211 


3. Jesus had settled this precise temptation for 
Himself years ago. 

He had settled it, as I showed, in the Desert. 
There He had debated with Himself how He might 
win the world for God. Could He win it by force? 
Or by clap-trap? Or by dazzling it into worship? 

In His own extreme agony, He had settled that 
He must win it by ordinary means,—by reason, by 
argument, by pleading, by teaching, by service. He 
had emptied Himself of all other power, and He 
stood forth declaring the simple message of God’s 
love. That, and that only. 


But more! He actually believed that He could * 


prove God’s love best by His own sacrifice. If 
therefore, in the midst of His sacrifice, He used 
God’s power to astonish and dazzle men, His sacri- 
fice would be a plain farce. Having once put 
Himself in the hands of men, He must leave Him- 
self there. 

So He settled His last dilemma. 

They cried to Him, “ Come down, that we may 
believe.”’ 

Thou knowest, O God, how much He wanted 
them to believe! It was the burning passion of 
His life. But He would not have them believe in 
Him, just because He could juggle with miracles 
or because He could ascend or descend from the 
cross, as if it were a Jacob’s ladder. 

I never accept Jesus because of His miracles. 
Do you? I accept His miracles because of Him. 


x 


gaa Te THE LAST DILEMMA 


\/ He is the biggest miracle of all, and greater than 
any deed He ever wrought. 

And it is here that I see the miracle of Him 
supremely. ‘That He, so conscious within Him 
of all the coursing power of God, gave Himself 
into the hands of men and died on a cross for me! 

They cried aloud for the miracle of power. They 
did not know they were seeing the greater miracle 
of love. 

“ He gave Himself a ransom for many.” 

I believe in Him today not in spite of, but be- 
cause of, that cross at which they jeered. 


III 

The sublimity of His sacrifice is shown in one 
little incident of that last hour. 

As they prepared Him for His cross, they 
brought Him a drink of myrrh and wine. This 
represented a type of rough mercy. ‘The drink 
acted as a kind of mild anzsthetic, and helped to 
drug the pain. In a merciless age, it was a_ 
symptom of redeeming thoughtfulness. 

We read that when He had tasted it, He refused 
to drink. 

Why? 

We know that it would have deadened His pain, 
and helped to relieve Him of some little part of 
His suffering. Why did He put aside this 
kindly cup? 

Because He had already accepted another cup. 


THE LAST DILEMMA 213 


He had taken it into His hands in the Garden of 
Pain. The Father’s cup! And He now resolved, 
in the majesty of His sacrifice, to die with un- 
clouded senses and carry His load with an un- 
dimmed mind. 

“Come down from the cross, that we may see 
and believe.” 

How could one who accepted the cross as God’s 
Will, dream of evading it thus? At this stage, He 
could only command the world’s belief by bearing 
the world’s cross. 

This is the last phase of His dilemma settled. 


He gave Himself now with an unclouded soul 
into the arms of God. 

“It is finished.” 

And He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. 


THE END 


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BS2421 .B62 
The sane of Jesus, 


rinceton Theological S rary 


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